The glorious and infamous history of the Borgia family--a world of
saints, corrupt popes, and depraved princes and poisoners--set against
the golden age of the Italian Renaissance.
The Borgia family have become a byword for evil. Corruption, incest,
ruthless megalomania, avarice and vicious cruelty--all have been
associated with their name. And yet, paradoxically, this family lived
when the Renaissance was coming into its full flowering in Italy.
Examples of infamy flourished alongside some of the finest art produced
in western history.
This is but one of several paradoxes associated with the Borgia family.
For the family which produced corrupt popes, depraved princes and
poisoners, would also produce a saint. These paradoxes which so
characterize the Borgias have seldom been examined in great detail.
Previously history has tended to condemn, or attempt in part to
exonerate, this remarkable family. Yet in order to understand the
Borgias, much more is needed than evidence for and against. The Borgias
must be related to their time, together with the world which enabled
them to flourish. Within this context the Renaissance itself takes on a
very different aspect. Was the corruption part of the creation, or vice
versa? Would one have been possible without the other?
In this way, the Borgia too represent the greatest aspirations of the
Renaissance. Condemning the Borgia is as futile as attempting to
exonerate them. Their leadership and their depravity must both be taken
into account, for it would appear that they are both part of the same
picture. In the nineteenth century the German philosopher Nietzsche
would outline his theory of the Will to Power. In the ensuing century
this idea would be hijacked by the Fascists and put into ruthless
practice. The Borgia were no Fascists, nor were they thinkers of the
calibre of Nietzsche: yet it is arguable that they united both the idea
and the practice of the Will to Power some four centuries prior to
Nietzsche's conception of this guiding human principle. Telling the
story of the Borgias becomes both an illustration and an exemplary
analysis of the strengths and flaws of this evolutionary idea.
The primitive psychological forces which first played out in the
amphitheaters of ancient Greece: hubris, incest, murder, the bitter
rivalries and entanglements of doomed families, the treacheries of
political power, the twists of fate--they are all here. Along with the
final, tragic downfall. All these elements are played out in full in the
glorious and infamous history of the Borgia family.
