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Home / Periods / Italian Renaissance / Borgia Papacy

Phase

Borgia Papacy

1492–1503 CE

The Borgia Papacy centred on Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, and his family in late fifteenth-century Rome. The period is associated with nepotism, dynastic ambition, diplomacy, warfare and later scandalous reputation. Rome itself was both a religious capital and a political court.

It matters because the Borgias turn Renaissance politics into family drama at the highest level. Their world includes cardinals, ambassadors, soldiers, marriages, rumours and propaganda. Novelists such as Sarah Dunant and many writers of Renaissance historical fiction use the Borgias for stories about power, reputation, gender and survival in a dangerous court.

Related people for Borgia Papacy

Alexander VI1431–1503 Cesare Borgia1475–1507 Giulia Farnese1474–1524 Lucrezia Borgia1480–1519 Niccolò Machiavelli1469–1527

Series

Series about Borgia Papacy (3 series)

The Borgia Chronicles in Order

by Kate Quinn 2 books 4.4(3,129)

The Borgia Chronicles follow Giulia Farnese from her marriage into the Orsini family to her position as the mistress of Rodrigo Borgia, elected Pope Alexander VI in 1492. Her fictional companions Carmelina and Leonello provide views of Vatican kitchens, security and the dangers surrounding the papal household. Across…

Borgias in Order

by Sarah Dunant 2 books 4.2(4,688)

Sarah Dunant’s Borgias novels reconstruct the rise and collapse of Pope Alexander VI’s family in Renaissance Italy. Beginning with Rodrigo Borgia’s election in 1492, the sequence follows Alexander, Cesare and Lucrezia as papal office, dynastic marriage and military ambition turn family loyalty into an instrument of government. Across…

A Novel of the Borgias in Order

by Jean Plaidy 2 books 3.8(4,003)

This two-volume novel sequence follows Lucrezia Borgia from her youth in the scandalous papal court of Alexander VI through the marriages, rivalries and political bargains that shaped her adult life. Against the factional politics of Renaissance Italy, Jean Plaidy presents Lucrezia as both a member of a feared…

Books

3 Best Novels About the Borgia Papacy