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The Borgias and Their Enemies: 1431-1519, by Christopher Hibbert
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Christopher Hibbert's latest history brings the family and the world they lived in—the glittering Rome of the Italian Renaissance—to life.The name Borgia is synonymous with the corruption, nepotism, and greed that were rife in Renaissance Italy. The powerful, voracious Rodrigo Borgia, better known to history as Pope Alexander VI, was the central figure of the dynasty. Two of his seven papal offspring also rose to power and fame—Lucrezia Borgia, his daughter, whose husband was famously murdered by her brother, and that brother, Cesare, who served as the model for Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince. Notorious for seizing power, wealth, land, and titles through bribery, marriage, and murder, the dynasty's dramatic rise from its Spanish roots to its occupation of the highest position in Renaissance society forms a gripping tale. Erudite, witty, and always insightful, Hibbert removes the layers of myth around the Borgia family and creates a portrait alive with his superb sense of character and place.
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Product details
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Mariner Books; First edition (September 16, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0547247818
ISBN-13: 978-0547247816
Product Dimensions:
5.2 x 0.8 x 7.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.0 out of 5 stars
114 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#360,061 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Hibbert is very good at recreating scenes from the lives of the Borgias, their allies and enemies. Pageants, balls, personalities, processions and ceremonies are all very richly and colorfully described.Likewise he is very good at keeping the narration moving forward, and this keeps the reader engaged.Where Hibbert somewhat fails for me is that he does not frequently enough situate the Borgias in the context of their times. The Borgias were major historical actors, and yet it was not always clear to me why, for example, a particular event or person that Hibbert describes may have been historically important, or, for that matter, important even within the context of the narrative. A little more analysis would have been helpful.Another weakness of Hibbert's writing is that, much more often than not, he does not make clear the relative veracity of the primary sources he quotes. He knows his sources well, but as a general reader, I do not; and Hibbert does not, to cite one of dozens of such examples, tell us if a letter written by the Venetian ambassador to the Papal court, describing yet another lurid detail of the sex lives of the Borgias, has any real truth in it or not. It is all hearsay. In that sense, many parts of the book felt very gossipy to me.And finally, even as the map of Italy may be familiar to many readers, I still would have found it useful to have one in the book that included the places he is talking about. Similarly, there were so many people, many of them with the same first or last names, that a few graphics of family trees would have helped me.All that said, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in this important and colorful family.
This book is a treasure for any enthusiast of the political struggles that were a signature of the Italian Renaissance. Much like the Greek city-states during antiquity, Italian history during this time was dominated by the economics and political dynamics of Florence, Milan and Italian states ruled by their own established political dynasties. Florence had the de' Medici, Milan had the Sforza: given this backdrop, the book shows how the Borgia family, rising from Spanish roots, made their way into Italian history.Instance after instance, I enjoyed how the author managed to balance fact with legend, tracing historical trajectory while using sources to tell us how the scholars and public percieved the driving personalities. Instead of jumping straight into the career of Pope Alexander VI, who became cardinal at 25, we're given a summary of then-recent Papal history to give context to the realities that Rodrigo Borgia exploited to navigate his way into the papacy. Horse-trading amongst cardinals, promises of posts and land were not unusual and Borgia merely mastered the art. The way he is described is not far removed from what is expected from popular depictions, "he well knew how to dominate, how to shine in conversation and how to impose his will on other men..." Instead of taking the oft-taken one-sided stance of dismissing his entire tenure as corrupt, Hibbert is more realistic: "...guilty as he may well have been of simony, bribery and sexual incontinence, Alexander VI was both conscientious and competent in the discharge of his duties. Approachable, affable and good-natured...".Given the giant mish-mash that is family politics, with family disputes, political alliances and marriages - the author captures a single dimension at a time so that the reader doesn't get overwhelmed or lost in the trivialities of learning family trees. The chapters are short so that the book doesn't read like a drag-on history book littered by facts and dates, the commentary is what is given its due importance.The Rome the Borgias inherited was struck by poverty, far removed from the grandeur of Imperial Rome. Alexander VI managed to balance the papal budget using income from aluminum mines, on the political level he managed to escape the insecurity of the College of Cardinal's calling council to dispose him and diplomatically, he gave a relatively minor concession to the French of allowing access through the papal states whilst avoiding an inevitable defeat had they gone to war against French canons. A good observer would notice the creation of the marks of Borgia opulence that lie to this date, decorated churches and palaces marked with great works of art.Cesare, unlike his father who, at least outside prided himself on following Christian rituals carried himself in "clothes that were the doublets and hose of a secular prince, not a man in holy orders". The book makes a swift turn from documenting the life of Rodrigo, his daughter Lucrezia (a chief tool in securing alliances through marriage) and Cesare's relatively incompetent brother Juan to Cesare's campaigns and successes. It is not difficult to notice that major parts of history are compressed into small paragraphs, such as the detailed histories of de' Medici, Sforza, the rise and fall of Savonarola - but the beauty of this book lies in this incompleteness. Firstly, the book avoids going on tangents, sticking to the facts that are relevant to Borgia history. Secondly, given that we are accustomed to dramatizations that fill in gaps where there is otherwise speculation and uncertainty, the relative dearth of information has the indirect effect of shocking us about the extent of creative license taken by authors and directors.The author does great service to Cesare's myth, while also bursting his aura of infallibility. From the Borgia nemeses Cardinal della Rovere, "the Duke is so endowed with prudence, ability and every virtue of mind and body that he has conquered everybody". The author wisely includes the famous assessments of Machiavelli in echoing the same views about his competence at realpolitik, giving weight to the view that Cesare was the person in mind when writing the Prince to reseek the favor of the Medici's. While Cesare fought "for the sake of glory of acquiring lands...acknowledging no fatigue or danger", the downside of this ability to annex lands in his campaign meant that he was "more eager to seize states than to administer them". To the author, history isn't a list of conquests but the ability to make good use of those conquests. At no point does the author seem to dive into describing campaigns without telling the reader about the monetary costs of the conflict and how the money was raised - giving a realistic and complete account of the nature of warfare as an economic enterprise, not merely a display of traditional heroism.Any Borgia fan would love the life-bringing descriptions of all dimensions of the family and their politics: Lucrezia and her three marriages, Cesare and his involvement with the French, Cesare's response to the Orsini revolt in Urbino, his diplomatic success with securing his French bride Charlotte d' Albert, the French claim to Naples as a source of constant dilemma's to the Borgia's who were allied to Naples's incumbents. The romantic affair with Cesare's life ends with the failure of his contingency plan upon the death of his father owing to his own illness and his fatal and poorly calculated mistake of helping della Rovere be elected, foolishly thinking that he would forget his long-standing enmity against the Borgia family and keep him as the head of the papal armies and maintain his hold on the Romagna. Lucrezia's last moments at the court are also explored, living her life as an obsolete political commodity until her death.A glance at the primary and secondary sources in the book give a good idea of how much material is taken from sources that describe the Italian Renaissance in its totality and not Borgia history isolation. This perhaps gives the best example of the undeniable influence that the Borgia's had on art and culture. Anyone who liked this book should grab a book on the history of the de' Medici and Sforza to get a broader picture of intra-city state politics.The book presents itself almost as a live show, a great summary - but by no means a concise history.A gripping read.
Yes, I said that. I picked up this book after watching the miniseries called "The Borgias", looking for something to balance the drama that I couldn't quite believe, with an "OK, what REALLY happened" attitude. I was well rewarded. For 100 years, give or take, prior to the lives of Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, the entire society lived with a "Get What you can get while the Getting is Good" attitude, and how you did it didn't matter a great deal. The stereotype of Lucrezia Borgia as the worst bad girl of all time starts to fall apart once you realize that she was living in an entire society with ethics that allowed this behavior. The church was as much a political government as is was a moral lodestone, maybe even more so. The Borgias were gifted with high intelligence, and the money simply made the manipulations possible. If you stand back and look at the facts with a slightly squinted eye, you'll see so many similarities throughout history. Look at Wall street during the mortgage fever and how about the movie "Greed"? Remember that the enemies of the Borgias would want to rewrite history to suit themselves....and its not like that hasn't been done. Remember Henry VII of England and how he burned the books so that they could be rewritten to show him as the legitimate heir? I liked this book. It doesn't make heroes of the Borgias, but it does explain them.
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