In the Name of the Family

by Sarah Dunant Book 2 in the Borgias series.

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4.3(2,284)

Italy, 1502. Cesare Borgia is extending papal power through the Romagna, combining military success with calculated terror. Niccolò Machiavelli arrives as a Florentine envoy and studies a ruler whose methods may provide a new model of statecraft, while Pope Alexander VI struggles to restrain an increasingly independent son and preserve the family’s alliances.

Lucrezia enters Ferrara as the wife of Alfonso d’Este and begins to build authority beyond her father’s control. As illness, papal succession and political betrayal threaten everything the Borgias have created, Cesare’s position disintegrates and Lucrezia must decide what parts of her family identity she can retain. The novel follows the dynasty’s final years through power observed, exercised and survived.