History UsefulNotes / TheBorgias

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* 1981's ''The Borgias'', produced by Creator/TheBBC. One in a series of failures by the BBC to create "the new ''Series/IClaudius''". Starring Creator/AdolfoCeli as Rodrigo/Alexander VI, Oliver Cotton as Cesare and Anne-Louise Lambert as Lucrezia.
* 2011 gave us [[DuelingWorks both]] ''Series/TheBorgias'' and ''Series/{{Borgia}}''. Both start with Rodrigo's ascent to the papacy, but only ''Borgia'' completed the story through Cesare's death -- [[spoiler: or, his supposed death]].
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[[folder:Gioffre]]

* The 1926 film version of ''Film/{{Don Juan|1926}}'' sets the story during the Borgia reign, and has Lucrezia set her sights on Don Juan as a conquest.
* The 1935 French film ''Lucrèce Borgia'' (from the French pronunciation of Lucrezia's name). Starred Edwige Feuillère as Lucrezia, Gabriel Gabrio as Cesare, Roger Karl as Rodrigo/Alexander VI and Maurice Escande as Juan.
* The 1953 French-Italian film ''Lucrèce Borgia''. Starred Martine Carol as Lucrezia and Creator/PedroArmendariz as Cesare.

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The House of Borgia were a noble family from UsefulNotes/{{Spain}} who ended up key figures in UsefulNotes/{{Ital|y}}ian politics during the early [[UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance Renaissance]], particularly Rodrigo Borgia (a cardinal who was elected [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope]] in 1492 as [[UsefulNotes/PopeAlexanderVI Alexander VI]]) and his children.

The House of Borgia were a noble family from UsefulNotes/{{Spain}} who were key figures in UsefulNotes/{{Ital|y}}ian politics during the early [[UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance Renaissance]], particularly Rodrigo Borgia (a cardinal who was elected [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope]] in 1492 as [[UsefulNotes/PopeAlexanderVI Alexander VI]]) and his children.

* ReallyGetsAround: Rodrigo was a man of many appetites, and loved the pleasures of the flesh.

* ''Theatre/LucreziaBorgia'', a play by Victor Hugo adapted into an opera by Gaetano Donizetti, takes the HistoricalVillainUpgrade slander to extremes, and has almost no connection to Lucrezia's life. Hugo said about writing it that he wanted to present the figure of a CompleteMonster who is also a mother, and explore what he saw as the inherent contradictions there.

Born in 1475. The oldest of the four children of Rodrigo and Vanozza, he was chosen and trained to be his father's heir. Of course, this meant he had to be a priest. The {{Nepotism}} started early -- at the age of 8, he was made a General Secretary of the church, and at 16, he became Bishop of Pamplona. Soon after his father became pope, Cesare was made a cardinal. He was never suited to the priesthood, however. He could have just shrugged his shoulders and gone along with the money and power it brought him (like Giulia's brother Alessandro Farnese, who was made a cardinal by Rodrigo at the same time, and later became Pope Paul III, using the office to give away church properties to his family all while writing a book about fine wine). But Cesare was different from that. In 1498, his father finally gave him permission to resign from being a cardinal -- something no one else in history, to this day, has done.

Once free of his clerical roles, Alexander made him captain of the papal forces. At the time, Rome was surrounded by the Papal States, which were ruled, badly, by petty tyrant families on behalf of the church. These rulers were supposed to pay rents and fulfill other obligations to the church, but they didn't because they knew that the church couldn't do anything about it. Alexander and Cesare hoped to change that. With a noble title and an army from the new King of France, Louis XII (who gave those to Cesare in exchange for a divorce, in order to marry his predecessor's widow), Cesare set out to conquer those lands back. His military exploits would inspire Creator/NiccoloMachiavelli's Literature/ThePrince. After the death of his father, the fact that Cesare was ill with the same malaria made it impossible for him to hold his gains together, and he was soon captured. He escaped from the castle where he was being held, but was killed in battle shortly after, on March 12, 1507 -- just 3 days short of [[UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar his namesake]].

Throughout his life, he was accompanied by '''Miguel da Corella''' (a.k.a. Michelotto, a.k.a. [[Series/TheBorgias Micheletto]], a.k.a. [[Literature/ThePrince Don Michele]]), his [[ChildhoodFriends childhood friend]] and [[TheConsigliere most loyal companion]]. Miguel's origins and date of birth are unknown, though some say he was an illegitimate son of a count in Spain. He is most often recorded in history committing murders for Cesare (see below), and his UndyingLoyalty is well attested to. He was captured before Cesare, in 1505, and tortured for information about his master, but he gave ''nothing''. Cesare was very distraught over Miguel's capture as well, offering castles and large amounts of money to his enemy in order to have him back.

After that, she married the Duke of Ferrara, Alfonso d'Este. As Duchess of Ferrara, she oversaw one of the most elegant and peaceful noble courts in Italy, though the factional and grudge-based violence still wasn't that much better than what she'd seen in Rome. She had an affair with a Venetian poet named Pietro Bembo, and Creator/LordByron said that their love letters were the most beautiful he'd ever read (he also stole a lock of Lucrezia's hair from them!)

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Rodrigo was ugly on most contemporary (or later) paintings representing him, something the likes of Creator/JeremyIrons (''Series/TheBorgias'') or Creator/ManuelTadros (''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'') are not. On the other hand, contemporary accounts suggest that he was actually an attractive man in his prime. His children, especially Cesare and Lucrezia, had their beauty praised quite often as well.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Rodrigo was a very shady man, but fiction usually takes this up to eleven.
** Even as early as the 18th Century historians noted that compared to many of the other cunning and shrewd nobles of his generation, he wasn't all that bad. What made everyone see him as such a monster was the fact that he became Pope and as such was held to a higher standard.

* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: Rodrigo as the Sensitive Guy to his [[TheSociopath Cesare]] [[TestosteronePoisoning Borgia]]'s manly man. Several adaptations play up Rodrigo's possible genuine faith and cerebral interests in contrast to Cesare's direct brutality. However, historically, Cesare was also quite brilliant, and his brutality was shown rarely, yet pointedly -- it's what he's known for because he did it so well.

* ''Manga/{{Cantarella}}'' is another, more fantastically-slanted manga about Cesare. In it, Rodrigo sells not his own soul, but Cesare's, to the devil in exchange for the papacy.

* Cesare and Lucrezia show up in ''Literature/FateRequiem'' as Assassin-class Servants who operate as {{Knowledge Broker}}s.

* ''Literature/TrinityBlood'', essentially a post-apocalyptic vampire AU of Italian Renaissance historical figures, has Antonio Borgia, clearly based on Cesare. He's the prince of the Kingdom of Valencia, a playful, flirtatious genius who earned 7 PhDs by the time he was 24 years old, and he works for the Vatican's anti-vampire military force essentially just for fun. He doesn't appear in the anime, only in the manga and light novels.