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| Background | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In his teenage years, a bitter Cesare, in his father's presence, stabbed the chamberlain, decapitated him and pierced his head on a pole with an attached inscription saying: "This is the head of my grandfather who prostituted his daughter to the pope" (A History of the Popes, op. cit., Alexander VI chapter). The evidence is serious. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cesare was Rodrigo Borja's favourite son. When Cesare was only seven, his father prepared his way to the College of Cardinals by making him a bishop, from which he received a substantial income. When Cesare was eighteen, his father, as Pope Alexander VI, conferred cardinality upon him and later elevated him to commander of the Vatican military in its efforts to extend the Papal States. Cesare grew into a man of clear and powerful intellect and the pope supported him until his death. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ambassadors speak of Cesare's introduction of multitudes of beautiful courtesans into the Vatican for Alexander's sexual pleasure in his later years. Burchard gives us astonishing details of one occasion in which the pope presided at an orgy in the Papal Palace: "On Sunday evening, 30 October [1501], Don Cesare Borja gave his father a supper in the apostolic palace, with 50 decent prostitutes or courtesans in bright garb in attendance, who after the meal danced with the servants and others there, first fully dressed and then naked. "Following the supper, lampstands holding lighted candles were placed on the floor and chestnuts strewn about, which the prostitutes, naked and on their hands and knees, had to pick up with their mouths as they crawled in and out among the lampstands. |
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In 1497, Cesare Borja had his brother Giovanni murdered out of jealousy, and in 1500 organised the murder of Lucrezia's husband, Alfonso of Aragon, because he wanted her to contract an alliance of greater political advantage. |
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Giovanni "...was fished out of the Tiber with his throat cut... [Alexander] took it as a warning from heaven to repent, and no one felt it more keenly than the pope himself. He spoke of resigning, and proclaimed his determination to set about that reform of the Church 'in Head and members' for which the world had so long been clamoring" (Catholic Encyclopedia, xiv, 32, 33). |
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| Most Evil Crimes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Death and Legacy | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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