History Series / TheBorgias

* DidYouJustHaveSex?: A rather creepy version in which Rodrigo [[spoiler: incorrectly]] judges from Lucrezia's smile and blush that her wedding night was all she had hoped it would be. She did have great sex;[[spoiler: just with her brother rather than her husband.]]

** The reason Giovanni Sforza is such a [[Jerkass]] to [[BreaktheCutie Lucrezia]] is because he regards the events of the wedding party to be "A public [[LargeHam HUMILIATION!]]" His [[HumiliationConga divorce]] ended up teaching the Italian snob the true meaning of "public humiliation".

* CutApart: At the end of the episode 'Siblings' we are led to believe that [[spoiler: Lucrezia is sneaking into her husband, Alfonso's, bedroom, while he is in his bed crying. When she climbs onto the bed and he turns in surprise, we see that she it's actually Cesare, and Alfonso is in another bedroom, alone.]]

* MisplacedWildlife: The first episode features a pet [[EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys Capuchin Monkey]] from South America in a prominent way. Notice that the scene takes place within days of Rodrigo's election in August 1492, when Columbus still had to complete his first voyage.

* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: In "Paolo", Cardinal della Rovere gets a monkey to taste his food to make sure it isn't poisoned. The irony of doing exactly what Cesare did in the first episode is not lost on him.

* StuffedInTheFridge:
** [[spoiler:Maria, the maid in "The Assassin". Micheletto seduces, then brutally murders her, with her death being the "proof" needed for Micheletto and Cesare to set up della Rovere to be banished from Rome. She basically dies so the audience can see how ruthless Micheletto and Cesare are, and to set up della Rovere's revenge angle.]]
** A male version [[spoiler:with Paolo. His story function was to give Lucrezia the natural-born son she may have had in history and a paramour whom she loved, then die tragically. He's more or less a PuritySue.]]
** And now, [[spoiler: Ursula is dead too. Since she's regarded as TheScrappy by most people, it's unlikely anyone will be too upset by this, even though Cesare all but lampshades the fact that her role was to make him more ruthless; "[her death] has released my heart of all emotions but one: vengeance".]]

* InfantImmortality:
** Subverted with the French invasion of Lucca in "Death on a Pale Horse", where a young girl is skewered by one of the French soldiers.
** And again in "The Choice", when several choirboys are hit by falling masonry after the ceiling of the Lateran basilica caves in.

* AffablyEvil:
** How Creator/JeremyIrons played Rodrigo Borgia, to a tee.

Well, you get the picture. Let's not even start on [[APartyAlsoKnownAsAnOrgy 'The Banquet of the Chestnuts']]. To be fair, the Borgias had many enemies and faced much more scrutiny than was typical of the time due to xenophobia (Rodrigo being a Spaniard who moved to Italy to advance his career) and much that was written about them was quite possibly exaggerated, expanded upon, or possibly even made up, to demonize the family. However, this does not mean that they were nice people. Even by the standards of the time, they weren't. Considering the world they lived in - Rome in the 15th century had corruption up to the ears - they couldn't afford to be.

%% * DeadlyDecadentCourt

** When Lucrezia astonishes everyone by [[spoiler: immediately accepting the proposal of someone who has just publicly made an {{Adorkable}} fool of himself (because she'd already spent some time with him and knew that he was sweet and harmless)]], Rodrigo happily thinks how remarkable it is that his children can still surprise him. He gets some more surprises, rather nastier ones; firstly, Juan was so hated by everyone that [[spoiler: Rodrigo is the only one to actually mourn his death]], and secondly, [[spoiler: Cesare's ruthlessness has gotten to the point where he can murder his own brother in cold blood.]]

* BadassGay: Micheletto is basically in Cesare's employ to torture or assassinate anyone who are an inconvenience to him. He definitely turns this trope UpToEleven.

The Borgias, or at least this particular branch of the family, have become a byword for corruption and decadence. It doesn't help that the head of the family, Rodrigo, is often believed to have bought, murdered, and blackmailed his way into the papacy. Or that he had a string of mistresses well into his sixties, despite the fact that he was, you know, a cardinal and then Pope. Or that he installed at least one of them in the Vatican itself. Or that he also had at least four acknowledged children, again despite the cardinal and Pope schtick. Or that one of his sons, Cesare, was a MagnificentBastard in every sense of the word. Or that his daughter, Lucrezia, has something of a reputation as a poisoner and a ''femme fatale''. Or that one of her husbands accused her of committing incest with her father and brother. Or that Cesare is rumored to have killed his brother, Giovanni, and either murdered or ordered the murder of his sister's second husband. Or that...

Well, you get the picture. Let's not even start on [[APartyAlsoKnownAsAnOrgy 'The Banquet of the Chestnuts']]. To be fair, the Borgias had many enemies and faced much more scrutiny than was typical of the time due to xenophobia, some of the stuff written about them was quite possibly exaggerated, expanded upon, or possibly even made up, to demonize them. This does not, however, mean that they were nice people. Even by the standards of the time, they weren't. Considering the world they lived in - let's be honest, Rome in the 15th century had corruption up to the ears - they couldn't afford to be.

All this is portrayed in the series and then some. Creator/JeremyIrons has top billing as [[UsefulNotes/PopeAlexanderVI Pope Alexander VI]], and the series debuted in April 2011. It has garnered some of the highest ratings on Showtime, and was renewed for a second, and then a third season. Shortly before the end of the third season, Showtime announced they were canceling the series. Plans for a TV movie to wrap up the series were shelved due to the expense of the project, with the proposed script being released as an e-book instead.

Not to be confused with a 1980 series, also called ''The Borgias'', which was produced by Creator/TheBBC. That version was one in a series of failures by the BBC to create "the new ''Series/IClaudius''".

Not to be confused either with ''Series/{{Borgia}}'', the European 2011 version produced by Canal+ and created by Tom Fontana from ''Series/{{Oz}}''.

* FiveBadBand:
** BigBad / EvilGenius: Rodrigo. Vannozza is starting to become another EvilGenius.
** TheDragon: Cesare and Ascanio Sforza.
** TheBrute: Juan and Micheletto (who is also Cesare's {{Dragon}}).
** DarkChick: Lucrezia and Giulia
** Mooks: The papal army.
* FiveBadBand:(Season 2) Cesare seem to build his own little army.
** BigBad: Cesare.
** TheDragon: Micheletto.
** EvilGenius: Machiavelli and Cesare can count as this.
** TheBrute: The other assassins he have recruited in season 2.

** Actually, a lot of Borgia successes seem to rely on this. Consequently, a lot of them appear on the series' CrowningMomentOfAwesome page.

** Rodrigo gives two [[CrowningMomentOfFunny hilarious]] ones to Cardinal Orsini and Cardinal della Rovere, two of the cardinals who oppose him.

** In "The Beautiful Deception" Rodrigo is worried because Lucrezia's refusal to nurse imperils her baby's health. In real life, there were wet nurses available.
** This was actually dealt with in the show. Rodrigo insisted that Lucrezia give the child to a wet nurse because her 'figure needed to be preserved' for future marriage negotiations. Lucrezia defied him and stubbornly continued to nurse her child. When, grief-stricken, she refused to feed, the maid told Rodrigo that the child was refusing to feed from a wet nurse as he had 'gotten too used to his mother's breast.' Thus, it was Lucrezia or starvation. Of course, whether a baby would care where the source of his milk was coming from to that extent, is another matter.
** Also, there's no way the Borgias would have publicly acknowledged any illegitimate child of Lucrezia's. Her main value to the family, politically, was in her marriageability, which would have been seriously damaged by the scandal of a son out of wedlock. Nor would she have had the freedom to choose her second husband as she does in the show; the main object of such marriages was to secure alliances, money and/or other political advantages, with the feelings of the bride ranking very low on the list of priorities.
** The 2011 Canal version - Borgia - dealt with this much more realistically, with Rodrigo confining Lucrezia to her apartments without servants and only her mother to deal with her needs during her pregnancy and then giving the child to rural peasants when it was born and demanding Lucrezia forget it. Of course, she didn't. She made several attempts to retrieve the child until finally Cesare, unable to deal with his sister's misery any longer, stole back the child and made a public announcement that it was his son. The product of a one night stand with a maid who had died in childbirth. He further declared that as his duties precluded his caring for his son, he was giving him to his sister in guardianship. Thus neatly solving the issue.
** Another anachronism, in the first episode, Handel's Coronation anthem, "Zadok the Priest," is played during Rodrigo's coronation as Pope. This Coronation theme, the traditional theme for the crowning of British Monarchs, however, was written in the 1720's, nearly 250 years after the events of the shows.

** Cesare. All the time.

** Lucrezia trying to seduce her husband.

** The whipping scene between Cesare and Michelotto. Oh Lordy, the whipping scene.

%% ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

** Apparent, but not to the same degree it was in ''TheTudors''. Except for a few differences in hair color, it's possible to picture that if Renaissance artists painted the actors in costume, they wouldn't look ''too'' dissimilar from their real counterparts, with the notable exception of Rodrigo. Even Creator/JeremyIrons thinks he doesn't look a thing like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pope_Alexander_Vi.jpg the actual Rodrigo]] and that they probably should have cast someone like James Gandolfini.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''TheTudors'', though Neil Jordan had been attempting to get the project made as a film long before ''TheTudors'' existed on television. It's an odd case of a preexisting concept being turned into a kind of DolledUpInstallment when it comes to spiritual succession.

** Topless Lotte Verbeek in a lot of episodes.

** TheBrute: Juan and Micheletto (who is also Cesare's Dragon).