Artistic License History / The Borgias

• In addition to the changing the details of events, there's also broader changes to culture and sensibility. Author and historian Ada Palmer says of it:
  Ada Palmer: I think because they were afraid of alienating their audience with the sheer implausibility of what the Renaissance was actually like. Rome in 1492 was so corrupt, and so violent, that I think they don’t believe the audience will believe them if they go full-on. Almost all the Cardinals are taking bribes? Lots, possibly the majority of influential clerics in Rome overtly live with mistresses? Every single one of these people has committed homicide, or had goons do it? Wait, they all have goons? Even the monks have goons? It feels exaggerated. Showtime toned it down to a level that matches what the typical modern imagination might expect. [...] Even in other details, Showtime kept letting modern sensibilities leak in. Showtime’s 14-year-old Lucrezia is shocked (as a modern girl would be) that her father wants her to have an arranged marriage [...] Showtime seemed to feel that the modern audience needed someone to relate to who agreed with us. And, for a broad part of the modern TV-watching audience, they may well be correct. I wouldn’t be surprised if many viewers find The Borgias a lot more approachable and comfortable than its more period-feeling rival.
• Start with the valiant but doomed-to-fail efforts to reduce how evil Rodrigo and Cesare really were, making Giovanni Sforza abuse and rape Lucrezia when he actually ignored her and only consummated the marriage fairly late into it, and putting Machiavelli in as an adviser to the Medici, which he never was, about 4 years before he had any position of power in Florence. Machiavelli was also a bitter enemy of the Medicis, who had imprisoned and tortured him. The Prince is sometimes even interpreted partly as a Take That! against them.
• Prince Djem arrives to live in exile under Pope Alexander and is poisoned to collect a reward from his brother, Sultan Beyazid, that is used to pay for Lucrezia's dowry in her first marriage (just as poor clueless Djem announced his intention to convert to Christianity!). In reality, Djem arrived in Rome during the reign of Innocent VIII, Alexander's precedessor, was asked repeatedly to convert to Christianity and head a crusade against the Turks but refused, and died years later while a captive of the French Army. Also, when Cesare tells Lucrezia that Djem died of malaria, she immediately speaks of mosquitos, but the connection between the disease and mosquitos wasn't established until the late 19th century.
• When the French do invade, they are portrayed as an unstoppable hegemon that makes mincemeat of the Italian mercenary armies, which was true. The idea is conveyed, however, by having the French artillery fire chain-shots (a weapon invented in the next century and used mostly in naval warfare) to make literal mincemeat of the Roman army without engaging it in combat, and the Italians are portrayed as completely ignorant of the military applications of gunpowder (or maybe it's only the show's version of Juan Borgia-the real one was in Spain at the time and missed the war altogether). French artillery also destroys Lucca after it surrenders; in real life this happened to Rapallo (a Genoese city occupied by the Neapolitans in an attempt to stop the French advance) and Mordano (a Papal fortress), while Lucca (an independent micro-republic) was liberated from Florentine occupation by the French. King Ferrante of Naples dies from the shock of hearing that the French army is coming, when it was his death that prompted the French to invade, since they disputed his succession. They take Naples without a fight and are ravaged by the plague; in real life it was syphilis and the French soldiers caught it exactly how you'd expect. Finally, the French capture Prince Alfonso (much younger and never crowned king in the series) and kill him after torturing him with a pear of anguish, a 17th century device that might have never been used in reality. The real Alfonso abdicated in favor of his son (who led the Neapolitan armies) and fled to Spanish-ruled Sicily.
• A lot is made of how the Borgias are hated for being Spanish, not Italian. Juan even recalls the children insulting them when they first arrived in Rome. In real life, the part about being looked down on being foreigners was true, but Alexander's kids never "arrived" in Rome because they were born there.
• Their mother, Italian noblewoman Vanozza dei Cattanei, is regularly described as a "Spanish beauty" in the show, her obvious Italian name notwithstanding.
• Lucrezia has her first son Giovanni before Juan dies. In real life, Giovanni was named after her deceased brother. He also was most probably not actually her son, but her half-brother, sired by her father Rodrigo on a mistress (Rodrigo admitted his paternity in a papal bull). She did raise him, however, and gave birth to at least six children (dying from medical complications in delivering the last one). The rumors of her committing incest and murder (especially through poisoning) are without proof.

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