Cesare Borgia

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Cesare Borgia.

Cesare Borgia (September 13, 1475? – March 12, 1507), Duke of Valentinois, and Romagna, Prince of Andria and Venafro, Count of Dyois, Lord of Piombino, Camerino and Urbino, Gonfalonier and Captain-General of Holy Church , was a Spanish-Italian condottiero, lord and cardinal. He was the son of Pope Alexander VI, and Vannozza dei Cattanei, sibling to Lucrezia Borgia, Jofré Borgia Prince of Squillace and Giovanni Borgia, duke of Gandia, and half-brother to Don Pedro Luis de Borja and Girolama de Borja, children of unknown mothers.

Contents

Biography

Birth

Like nearly all aspects of Cesare Borgia's life, the date of his birth is a subject of conflict. However, it is accepted that he was born between 1474 and 1476 to Cardinal Rodrigo de Lanzol y Borja, soon to become Pope Alexander VI, and the mysterious Vanozza Catanei, of whom documents are sparse. The Borgia family originally came from Spain and rose in the mid fifteenth century, when Cesare's great uncle Alonso Borgia (1378-1458), bishop of Valencia, was elected Pope Callixtus III in 1455. <ref>Herfried Münkler and Marina Münkler, Lexikon der Renaissance, Munich: Beck, 2000, 43ff.Template:De icon</ref> Cesare's father, Pope Alexander VI was the first pope who openly recognized the children he had with his lover Vanozza Catanei.

Stefano Infessura writes that Cardinal Borgia falsely claimed Cesare to be the legitimate son of another man, the unreal husband of Vannozza Catanei. More likely Pope Sixtus IV granted Cesare a release from the necessity of proving his birth in a papal bull.

Early life

With brown eyes and orange hair, Cesare was acknowledged a beautiful child and grew to be a fleet-footed, tall, handsome man of unlimited ambition, much like his father. Cesare was initially groomed for a career in the church. He was made Bishop of Pamplona at the age of 15. Following school in Perugia and Pisa where Cesare studied law, and his father's elevation to Pope, Cesare was made Cardinal at the age of 18. <ref>Herfried Münkler and Marina Münkler, Lexikon der Renaissance, Munich: Beck, 2000, 43ff.Template:De icon</ref> Alexander VI staked the hopes for the Borgia family on Cesare's brother Giovanni, who was made captain general of the military forces of the papacy. When Giovanni was assassinated in 1497, Alexander was forced to substitute Cesare, despite the fact that this conflicted with Cesare's vows. On August 17, 1498, Cesare became the first person in history to resign the cardinalate. The French king Louis XII named Cesare Duke of Valentinois, which explains the nickname "Valentino."

Military career

Cesare's career was founded upon his father's ability to distribute patronage. Appointed commander of the papal armies, Cesare was sent by his father to subdue the cities of central Italy. Though in theory subject directly to the pope, the rulers of these cities had been practically independent or dependent on other states for generations. With French support, Cesare managed to carve out a duchy of Romagna, which Alexander VI hoped could rival Naples, Florence, Milan and Venice.

Cesare Borgia briefly employed Leonardo da Vinci as military architect and engineer at one point. Leonardo had worked at the Milanese court of Ludovico Sforza for many years, until Charles VIII of France drove Sforza out of Italy.

Though an immensely capable general and statesman, Cesare could do nothing without continued papal patronage. The death of his father ended his own career. Gravely ill at the time that his father died in 1503, he was seized and imprisoned by his political enemies, led by Pope Julius II. Exiled to Spain, in 1504, he escaped from a Spanish prison two years later and joined his brother-in-law, King John III of Navarre. In his service, Cesare died at the siege of Viana in 1507, at the age of thirty-one.

Cesare Borgia was greatly admired by Niccolò Machiavelli, who met the Duke on a diplomatic mission in his function as Secretary of the Florentine Chancellery. Machiavelli was at Borgia's court from October 7, 1502 through January 18, 1503. During this time he wrote regular dispatches to his superiors in Florence, many of which have survived and are published in Machiavelli's Collected Works. Machiavelli used many of Borgia's exploits and tactics as examples in The Prince and advised politicians to imitate Borgia. Two episodes were particularly impressive to Machiavelli: the method by which Borgia pacified the Romagna, which Machiavelli describes in chapter VII of The Prince, and Borgia's assassination of his rivals on New Years' Eve of 1503 in Sinigaglia. <ref>Niccolò Machiavelli, "A Description of the Method Used by Duke Valentino in Killing Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, and Others",The Chief Works and Others, trans. Allan Gilbert, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1989, 3 vols., 163-169</ref>

Machiavelli's praise for Borgia is subject to controversy. Some scholars see in Machiavelli's Borgia the precursor of state crimes in the Twentieth Century.<ref>Ernst Cassirer, The Myth of the State, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1946</ref>. Others, including Macaulay and Lord Acton have historicized Machiavelli's Borgia, explaining the admiration for such violence as an effect of the general criminality and corruption of the time.<ref>Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli's Virtue, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.</ref>

In Volume One of Celebrated Crimes, Alexandre Dumas pére states that some pictures of Jesus Christ produced around Borgia's lifetime were based on Cesare Borgia, and that this in turn has influenced images of Jesus produced since that time.

Marriage and children

On May 10, 1499, Cesare married Charlotte d'Albret (1480 - March 11, 1514). She was a sister of John III of Navarre. They were parents to a daughter:

  • Louise Borgia, Duchess of Valentinois, Dame de Chalus , Duchess of Borgia (1500 - 1553). Married first Louis II de La Tremouille, Governor of Burgundy and secondly Philippe de Bourbon, Seigneur de Busset.

Cesare was also father to at least one illegitimate child: Girolamo Borgia, who married Isabella Contessa di Carpi.

Popular culture

Movies

Fiction

Music

The 1995 song B.I.B.L.E (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth), performed by Killah Priest, and released on the influential GZA album Liquid Swords, and later on his own debut album Heavy Mental, includes lyrics which proclaim: Template:Quote

Film

In the 1949 film The Third Man, screenplay by Graham Greene, Orson Welles' character Harry Lime proclaims, "You know what the fellow said...in Italy for thirty 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 five hundred years of democracy and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

References

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Sources

External links

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