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Malcolm Moore Thursday, January 25, 2007 Five hundred years after he was killed in battle, the remains of Cesare Borgia, the notorious inspiration for Machiavelli's The Prince, are to be moved into a Spanish church. Banned from holy ground by bishops horrified by his sins, the remains of the ruthless military leader lie, at present, under a pavement in Viana in northern Spain. Borgia was the illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI, and was made a cardinal by his father at the age of 17. He was an accomplished murderer by 25 and had conquered a good part of Italy...

How did the sister of Machiavelli's prince get so wealthy during an economic downturn?In popular legend, Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara (1480- 1519), stands falsely accused of poisoning her second husband. Victor Hugo portrayed her in thinly veiled fiction as a tragic femme fatale. Buffalo Bill named his gun after her. But new research by USC historian Diane Yvonne Ghirardo reveals that the only sister of Machiavelli's Prince was less interested in political intrigue than in running a business, undertaking massive land development projects that "stand alone in the panorama of early sixteenth-century projects, not only those initiated by women,"...

[This is part of Catholic Analysis' special series on Pope Alexander VI. This part, the seventh, touches on his closeness with his native country. Read the sixth part.] Br. J.B. Darcy points out some necessary background information: "For centuries, Spain had been almost completely overridden by the Moors. The Spaniards had been trying to take back their country from the Moors for almost 800 years. By the middle of the 15th century, this reconquest was almost complete, but Spain was still a hodgepodge of competing principalities and, because of its constant state of warfare, still a very backward country." [1]...

[This is part of Catholic Analysis' special series on Pope Alexander VI. This part, the sixth, grapples with Alexander's interesting relations with the French. Read the fifth part.] With a devout personality, encouraged by his friend, St. Francis of Paola, King Charles VIII was just the man to bring about needed reforms. He was quirky, but responsible, and he was a little naive, but full of ideas. There was only one snag to him: Charles had been taught to covet Naples, and he saw it as a gateway to further expansion. He wanted Alexander to give it to him, but...

[This is part of Catholic Analysis' special series on Pope Alexander VI. This part, the second, deals with the pontiff's family. Read the first part.] Vannozza dei Cattanei was Rodrigo Borgia's mistress and the mother of his children. She "doubtless was of great beauty and ardent passions; for if not, how could she have inflamed a Rodrigo Borgia? Her intellect too, although uncultivated, must have been vigorous; for if not, how could she have maintained her relations with the cardinal?" [1] He was "faithful through his life to [this] one woman". After the births of their children and before he...

[This is part of Catholic Analysis' special series on Pope Alexander VI. This part, the fourth, details Alexander's election and coronation. Read the third part.] The conclave of 1492 was an awesome, if typical, affair. After the death of Pope Innocent VIII, the primary contenders to succeed him quickly became obvious: Rodrigo Borgia, Ascanio Sforza, and Giuliano della Rovere (who later became Pope Julius II). [1] Rodrigo was the obvious choice, a man of high honors and popularity. However, that he was Spanish, and therefore seen as an outsider, was likely a point of considerable contention. Ascanio, the Italian and...

[This is part of Catholic Analysis' special series on Pope Alexander VI. This part, the fifth, explains Alexander's connections with the Italians. Read the fourth part.] Once his installment was settled, the pope set about making many changes. Alexander was a reformer. He despised the corruption prevalent in some ranks of clergy, and so he proclaimed, "We are well aware that morals have notably fallen back. No longer can we tolerate the way in which the former salutary measures instituted by our predecessors to keep sensuality and avarice within bounds have been violated so that we fall headlong into corruption....