Alexander VI was a Roman Pope who occupied the seat of Saint Peter in the period 1492-1521 and who would stand out as one of the most significant figures of the Renaissance. Abandoning the evangelical model of life, the Renaissance pontiffs were more concerned with their political projection and stately greatness, while becoming a patron of the arts and the rebirth of classical cultures. Despite the threat of Turkish invasion and growing irritation at the financial abuses of the pontificate that practiced open nepotism, the Church did nothing to remedy the disorders. The Reformation of Luther and Calvin was inevitable.
In 1492 succeeded Innocent VII on the papal throne (Bautista Cibo), who, following the trend of the popes of the time, led a licentious life and followed the current of worldliness of the curia and the Church. His greatest scandal was the favoritism he exercised with two of his natural children, especially Franceschetto, whom he solemnly married to a daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici, one of whose sons was raised to the cardinalate when he was only thirteen years old. . Alexander VI did nothing but follow in his footsteps.
The Borja family
Rodrigo Borja, or Borgia, according to the Italian form that acquired the name, was born on January 4, 1431, in the city of San Felipe de Játiva, Valencia . His parents, Jofre de Borja and Isabel de Borja, sister of Pope Calixto III, belonged to the noble family of the same name, originally from Aragon and established in Játiva, which acquired great importance in the political life of Italy and the church. Two of its members were popes; his surnames appear frequently linked to cardinals of the time; In the family tree there is also a saint, Francisco de Borja Aragón, who was general of the Jesuits . Around the family there is a black legend that is the subject of abundant bibliography, which most of the time responds to the disqualifying desire of its enemies. According to them, the Borgias were a demonic family of ambitious murderers —they refer to the use of arsenic as a method to eliminate those who hindered them— and incestuous —Lucretia's relationships with her brothers and even with her father Alexander VI—, monsters of cunning and cruelty. But a line of apologists regards Alexander VI as one of the most brilliant popes of the Renaissance:an elegant and cultured man whose wisdom earned him the bombastic nickname of "the most eminent and most wise jurisconsult" , who united to his talent an unparalleled sagacity and dexterity in the handling of business and the defense of the Church and his orthodoxy. But, ultimately, the Borgias were simply one more example of the factions of Renaissance Rome, probably neither better nor worse than other families of the time that disputed power in a war to the death . Only that when they were defeated they were the target of the steely and vengeful pen.
Rodrigo Borgia was undoubtedly the most prominent member of the family. The three recognized sons of him originated the three main lines of the saga :the line of the Dukes of Gandia, started by Pedro Luis de Borgia and continued by his brother Juan de El; the line of the dukes of Valentinois, founded by César Borgia, and the line of the princes of Squilace, with the surname Borja de Aragón, which, for reasons of marriage, was merged into other branches.
Ecclesiastical career
At a very young age he was directed towards an ecclesiastical career. Before he was sixteen, he had already been granted the benefice of Játiva and some canonries in Segorbe and Valencia. At nineteen, that young man with a robust complexion, brilliant oratory and seductive demeanor, pursued higher studies in Italy , until obtaining a doctorate in law from the University of Bologna, in 1456, the year in which his uncle ascended the papal throne and, on September 18, appointed him cardinal deacon of San Nicolás «in Carcere Tulliano» , Vice Chancellor of the Roman Church, Governor of the Duchy of Espoleto, Legate of the March of Ancona and Bishop of Valencia in 1458.
From that moment on, his influence in the curia and in the circles of power grew. The young cardinal led the life of a prince of the time, celebrating frequent bacchanals in the very Vatican, without even being made to change the frequent admonitions of Pius II, successor of Calixtus III. He became the owner or administrator of the mitres of Gerona, Valencia, Cartagena, Albano, Porto and Mallorca, among others. He was probably ordained a priest in 1459, after making an act of contrition before Pius II . During his time as Vice-Chancellor, a position he held under Pius II, Paul II, Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII, that is, from 1456 to 1492 —he was also Bishop of Barcelona from April 7, 1473 to the beginning of 1479—, it was the pontifical legate of the main affairs affecting the papacy. Diplomatic missions were entrusted to him or he approached them on his own initiative. One of the first and most important, near the kings of Catalonia-Aragon and Castile (1456-1457) , with the purpose of obtaining funds and soldiers for a crusade against the Turks. Although he did not achieve his goals, he wasted no time:he took advantage of the stay to legalize the marriage of Ferdinand II and Isabella of Castile, to whom in 1496 he gave the nickname of Reyes Católicos.
Alexander VI is elected pope
At the death of Innocent VIII, Alexander Borgia had already bribed his way to the papal throne. The conclave of August 9, 1492 elected him pope . At that time, although he only recognized three children, no less than ten were attributed to him:Pedro Luis, Jerónima and Isabel, whose mother was unknown (some historians speak of a certain Rosa Benezza), Juan, César, Lucrecia and Jofre, held by the Roman lady Vannozza Cattanei, and possibly Laura, from her relations with Julia Farnese. Being already supreme pontiff, in 1498 he was the father of another Juan, called the "Roman boy", and of Rodrigo (around 1502), of also anonymous mothers.
Alexander VI, like most of the popes of the time, developed a policy in which family ambitions and the temporal interests of the Vatican as an Italian power were intertwined . The long residence of the popes in Avignon and the determination of the Romans in wanting to recover their municipal freedom, had put the Holy See in a critical situation. In addition, many princes, whom Alexander considered usurpers, had seized several domains that he tried to recover in a ruthless struggle against them:the Prince of Este in Ferrara, the Bentivoglios in Bologna, the Malatestas in Rimini, etc.
Favors from the pope to his family
Until the year 1498 he opposed the claims of Charles VIII of France to the Kingdom of Naples, seeking support in the dynasties of Catalonia-Aragon, by marrying his children Jofre, Juan and Lucrecia with members of the same. However, in 1499 he leaned in favor of the French and married his son César to Catalina de Albret, sister of the king of Navarre, to counteract the danger of a Hispanic hegemony in Italy. After having been brazenly favored by his father, César was, at the age of sixteen, Bishop of Pamplona (1491) under the influence of the then Cardinal Borgia; before turning twenty, archbishop of Valencia and cardinal . After the death of his brother Juan, Duke of Gandía, in very suspicious circumstances that implicated him in the crime, he abandoned his priestly status in 1498 (by then his body was already deformed by syphilis) and became heir to the projects politicians that Alexander VI had planned for his son Juan.
Savonarola excommunication
It was then that the forceful and inflamed voice of the Dominican Jerónimo Savonarola, from the convent of San Marcos in Florence, emerged . With his fiery preaching and his seductive asceticism, he gained such ascendancy that in practice he became the political director of the republic. When in 1494 Charles VIII appeared in Italy to assert his claims to Milan and Naples, Savonarola hailed him as a savior. But upon his arrival in Rome, the pope succeeded in turning the French king into his most submissive and obedient servant. This was followed by the rebellion and consequent excommunication of Savonarola in 1497 . Even so, he persisted in denouncing him, until, condemned as "heretic and despiser of the Holy See" , he was thrown at the stake by the very people who had acclaimed him.
Main diplomatic acts
Among the diplomatic acts of Alexander VI stands out the bull Inter Caetera (1493), which sanctioned the partition of the lands of the New World between Spain and Portugal. He renewed the bull In Coena Domini (1493), against heretics; he favored the implantation of the Inquisition in Castile and Catalonia-Aragon, and reestablished the censorship of books in Germany. On the other hand, he welcomed in Rome the Jews expelled from Spain .
Alexander VI was a prominent patron. His name is linked to the erection of the see of Valencia as archbishopric (1492) and to the foundation of the General Study of this city in 1500. He restored the castle of Sant Angelo; he built a new building for the University of Rome and the palace of the vice-chancellery ; he had some rooms in the Vatican painted by Pinturicchio, and for Pope Borgia he sculpted Michelangelo's famous Pietá . He died on August 18, 1503 .