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Pope Alexander VI
Warning: Adult content in the life of this Pope.Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia bribed his way to become Pope Alexander VI in 1492. His pontificate lasted until 1503.
Even at a young age, Borgia was cruel. One chronicler said Alexander committed his first murder at age twelve on a boy his own age
by driving his scabbard again and again into his belly, to punish him for having uttered some indecent words....Pope Alexander VI had six children. His daughter Lucrezia and his two sons Cesare and Juan were almost as notorious as the pontiff himself.
Papal Orgies
Once he became Pope Alexander VI, Vatican parties, already wild, grew wilder. They were costly, but he could afford the lifestyle of a Renaissance prince; as vice chancellor of the Roman Church, he had amassed enormous wealth. As guests approached the papal palace, they were excited by the spectacle of living statues: naked, gilded young men and women in erotic poses. Flags bore the Borgia arms, which, appropriately, portrayed a red bull rampant on a field of gold. Every fete had a theme. One, known to Romans as the Ballet of the Chestnuts, was held on October 30, 1501. The indefatigable Burchard describes it in his Diarium. After the banquet dishes had been cleared away, the city's fifty most beautiful whores danced with the guests, "first clothed, then naked." The dancing over, the "ballet" began, with the Pope and two of his children in the best seats.Alexander's orgies were often attended by his illegitimate children, Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, whom Voltaire in his Philosophical Dictionary described as
Candelabra were set up on the floor, scattered among them were chestnuts, "which", Burchard writes, "the courtesans had to pick up, crawling between the candles." Then the serious sex started. Guests stripped and ran out onto the floor, where they mounted, or were mounted by, the prostitutes. "The coupling took place," according to Burchard, "in front of everyone present." Servants kept score of each man's orgasms, for the Pope greatly admired virility, and measured a man's machismo by his ejaculative capacity. After everyone was exhausted, His Holiness distributed prizes -- cloaks, boots, caps, and fine silken tunics. "The winners", the diarist wrote, "were those who made love with the courtesans the greatest number of times."
-- A World Lit Only by Fire - The Medieval Mind and The Renaissance, by William Manchester
two of the most wicked persons in European history ...
The incestuous Pope Alexander VI and his incestuous offspring
"His daughter had just turned seventeen and was at the height of her beauty. We now know that he was, in fact, her lover. ... Here, however, the tale darkens. Romans had scarcely absorbed the news that the father lusted for his daughter when they learned even more. Lucrezia was said to be unavailable to her father because she was already deeply involved in another incestuous relationship, or relationships -- a triangular entanglement with both her handsome brothers. The difficulty, it was whispered, was that although she enjoyed coupling with both of them, each, jealous of the other, wanted his sister for himself.
On the morning of June 15, 1497, Juan Borgia's corpse was found floating in the Tiber mutilated by nine savage dagger wounds.
-- A World Lit Only by Fire - The Medieval Mind and The Renaissance, by William Manchester
The adulterous Pope Alexander VI
Contemporary reports wrote of how Alexander had a passion for adultery. The best-known among his mistresses were Vannozza Catanei (mother of four of Pope Alexander's children) and Giulia Farnese whom he took as his mistress when she was 15 and he was 61. Giulia bore him two more children."Borgia's enjoyment of the flesh was enhanced when the woman beneath him was married, particularly if he had presided at her wedding. Breaking any commandment excited him, but he was partial to the seventh. As priest he married Rosa to two men. She may have actually slept with her husbands from time to time -- since Borgia always kept a stable of women, she was allowed an occasional night off to indulge her own sexual preferences -- but her duties lay in his eminence's bed. Then, at the age of fifty-nine, he yearned for a more nubile partner. His parting with Rosa was affectionate. Later he gave her a little gift- he made her brother a cardinal."
There were critics of the corruption in the church, and they invariably met gruesome deaths. Girolamo Savonarola, (1452-1498) gave marathon sermons denouncing the church's hypocrisy saying "The Papal Palace had literally become a house of prostitution where harlots sit upon the throne of Solomon and signal to the passersby. Whoever can pay enters and does what he wishes." At last, "the Pope condemned him as a heretic, sentenced him to torture, and finally had him hanged and burned in the Plaza della Signoria."
-- A World Lit Only by Fire - The Medieval Mind and The Renaissance, by William Manchester
Cesare Borgia: his father's son
Described as "his father's henchman", Cesare Borgia was feared and hated for his cruelty.Cesare had been born so there might be in the world one man vile enough to carry out the designs of his father, Alexander VI.The chronicler Johann Burchard said it was "so agreeable" for Cesare to see blood that:
-- Francesco Guicciardini, Florentine statesman
he practised butchery in order to keep alive his thirst for blood.
One day he went so far as to have the square of St Peter enclosed by a palisade, into which he ordered some prisoners - men, women and children - to be brought.
He then had them bound, hand and foot, and being armed and mounted on a fiery charger, commenced a horrible attack upon them.
Some he shot, and others he cut down with his sword, trampling them under his horse's feet.
In less than half-an-hour, he wheeled around alone in a puddle of blood, among the dead bodies of his victims, while his Holiness and Madam Lucrezia, from a balcony, enjoyed the sight of that horrid scene.
-- historian Johann Burchard, contemporary of Alexander VI, who lived in the Vatican
The death of Pope Alexander VI
It was said Alexander would appoint a cardinal after accepting a bribe and then poison the newly-made prince before reopening the bidding for his replacement. Pope Alexander's favourite poison was generally believed to be cantarella, made up largely of white arsenic. This was the poison Alexander was thought to have drunk by mistake (he had intended it to take effect on cardinal Adrian Corneto who, being suspicious, had switched the glasses).
Nigel Cawthorne describes the dying Alexander:
"Slowly his face turned mulberry-coloured and his skin began to peel off; the fat on his belly turned to liquid and he bled from both ends."Another chronicler described the pope's death as "revolting", writing:
-- Sex Lives of the Popes, Nigel Cawthorne
... to look at that deformed, blackened corpse, prodigiously swelled, and exhaling an infectious smell; his lips and nose were covered with brown drivel, his mouth was opened very widely, and his tongue, inflated by poison, fell out upon his chin; therefore no fanatic or devotee dared to kiss his feet or hands, as custom would have required ...
-- Raphael Volterrano, historian, contemporary of Alexander VI
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