| Cesare Borgia | |
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 | |
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Real Name |
Cesare Borgia |
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Born |
13 September, 1475 |
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Died |
12 March, 1507 |
Origin[]
Cesare Borgia was an Italian cardinal and condottiero (mercenary leader), an illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI and member of the Spanish-Aragonese House of Borgia. His fight for power was a major inspiration for The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli.
After initially entering the Church and becoming a cardinal on his father's election to the papacy, he resigned after the death of his brother in 1498. He served as a condottiero for King Louis XII of France around 1500, and occupied Milan and Naples during the Italian Wars. At the same time, he carved out a state for himself in Central Italy, but he was unable to retain power for long after his father's death. According to Machiavelli, this was not due to a lack of foresight, but his error in creating a new pope.
He was born in Italy in either 1475 or 1476, the illegitimate son of Cardinal Roderic Llançol i de Borja, usually known as "Rodrigo Borgia", later Pope Alexander VI, and his Italian mistress Vannozza dei Cattanei. The Borgia family originally came from the Kingdom of Valencia, and rose to prominence during the mid-15th century. Cesare's great-uncle Alphonso Borgia, bishop of Valencia, was elected Pope Callixtus III in 1455. Cesare's father, Pope Alexander VI, was the first pope who openly recognized his children born out of wedlock. Cesare was initially groomed for a career in the Church. Following school in Perugia and Pisa, Cesare studied law at the Studium Urbis. He was made bishop of Pamplona at the age of 15 and archbishop of Valencia at 17. In 1493, he had also been appointed bishop of both Castres and Elne. In 1494, he also received the title of abbot of the abbey of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa. Along with his father's elevation to Pope, Cesare was made Cardinal at the age of 18.
Alexander VI staked the hopes of the Borgia family on Cesare's brother Giovanni, who was made captain-general of the military forces of the papacy. Giovanni was assassinated in 1497 under mysterious circumstances. Several contemporaries suggested that Cesare might have been his killer, as Giovanni's disappearance could finally open to him a long-awaited military career and also solve the jealousy over Sancha of Aragon, wife of Cesare's younger brother, Gioffre, and mistress of both Cesare and Giovanni. Cesare's role in the act has never been clear. However, he had no definitive motive, as he was likely to be given a powerful secular position, whether or not his brother lived. It is possible that Giovanni was killed as a result of a sexual liaison.
On 17 August 1498, Cesare resigned the cardinalate, in order to pursue a military career. On the same day, Louis XII of France named Cesare Duke of Valentinois. On 6 September 1499, he was released from all ecclesiastical duties and laicised from his diaconal orders (because he only was ordained deacon on 26 March 1494 and never received other major orders as priesthood and bishop consecration). Cesare's career was founded upon his father's ability to distribute patronage, along with his alliance with France (reinforced by his marriage with Charlotte d'Albret, sister of John III of Navarre), in the course of the Italian Wars. Louis XII invaded Italy in 1499; after Gian Giacomo Trivulzio had ousted its duke Ludovico Sforza, Cesare accompanied the king in his entrance into Milan.
At this point, Alexander decided to profit from the favourable situation and carve out for Cesare a state of his own in northern Italy. To this end, he declared that all his vicars in Romagna and Marche were deposed. Though in theory subject directly to the pope, these rulers had been practically independent or dependent on other states for generations. In the view of the citizens, these vicars were cruel and petty. When Cesare eventually took power, he was viewed by the citizens as a great improvement. Cesare was appointed commander of the papal armies with a number of Italian mercenaries, supported by 300 cavalry and 4,000 Swiss infantry sent by the king of France. Alexander sent him to capture Imola and Forlì, ruled by Caterina Sforza (mother of the Medici condottiero Giovanni dalle Bande Nere). Despite being deprived of his French troops after the conquest of those two cities, Borgia returned to Rome to celebrate a triumph and to receive the title of Papal Gonfalonier from his father. In 1500 the creation of twelve new cardinals granted Alexander enough money for Cesare to hire the condottieri, Vitellozzo Vitelli, Gian Paolo Baglioni, Giulio and Paolo Orsini, and Oliverotto Euffreducci, who resumed his campaign in Romagna.
Giovanni Sforza, first husband of Cesare's sister Lucrezia, was soon ousted from Pesaro; Pandolfo Malatesta lost Rimini; Faenza surrendered, its young lord Astorre III Manfredi being later drowned in the Tiber by Cesare's order. Later In 1501 the latter was created duke of Romagna. Hired by Florence, Cesare subsequently added the lordship of Piombino to his new lands. While his condottieri took over the siege of Piombino which ended in 1502, Cesare commanded the French troops in the sieges of Naples and Capua, defended by Prospero and Fabrizio Colonna. On 24 June 1501, Borgia's troops stormed the latter to end the siege of Capua.# In June 1502 he set out for Marche, where he was able to capture Urbino and Camerino by treason. He planned to conquer Bologna next. However, his condottieri, most notably Vitellozzo Vitelli and the Orsini brothers (Giulio, Paolo and Francesco), feared Cesare's cruelty and set up a plot against him. Guidobaldo da Montefeltro and Giovanni Maria da Varano returned to Urbino and Camerino, and Fossombrone revolted. The fact that his subjects had enjoyed his rule thus far meant that his opponents had to work much harder than they would have liked. He eventually recalled his loyal generals to Imola, where he waited for his opponents' loose alliance to collapse. Cesare called for a reconciliation, but imprisoned his condottieri in Senigallia, then called Sinigaglia, a feat described as a "wonderful deceiving" by historian Paolo Giovio, and had them strangled. In 1503 he conquered the Republic of San Marino.
Although he was an immensely capable general and statesman, Cesare had trouble maintaining his domain without continued papal patronage. Niccolò Machiavelli cites Cesare's dependence on the goodwill of the papacy, under the control of his father, as being the principal disadvantage of his rule. The news of his father's death in 1503 arrived when Cesare was planning the conquest of Tuscany. While he was convalescing in Castel Sant'Angelo from an attack of malarial fever, his troops controlled the September 1503 papal conclave. The new pope, Pope Pius III, supported Cesare Borgia and reconfirmed him as Gonfaloniere, but after a brief pontificate of twenty-six days, he died. Borgia's deadly enemy, Giuliano Della Rovere, then succeeded by dexterous diplomacy in tricking the weakened Cesare Borgia into supporting him by offering him money and continued papal backing for Borgia policies in the Romagna; promises which he disregarded upon his election as Pope Julius II by the near-unanimous vote of the cardinals in the October 1503 papal conclave. Realizing his mistake by then, Cesare tried to correct the situation in his favour, but Pope Julius II made sure of its failure at every turn. Cesare was for example forced by Julius to give up San Marino, after occupying the republic for six months.
Cesare Borgia, who was facing the hostility of Ferdinand II of Aragon, was betrayed while in Naples by Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, a man he had considered his ally, and imprisoned there, while his lands were retaken by the papacy. In 1504 he was transferred to Spain and imprisoned first in the Castle of Chinchilla de Montearagón in La Mancha, but after an attempted escape he was moved north to the Castle of La Mota, Medina del Campo, near Segovia. He did manage to escape from the Castle of La Mota with assistance, and after running across Santander, Durango and Gipuzkoa, he arrived in Pamplona on 3 December 1506, and was much welcomed by King John III of Navarre, who was missing an experienced military commander, ahead of the feared Castilian invasion.
Borgia recaptured Viana, Navarre, which had been in the hands of forces loyal to Louis de Beaumont, the count of Lerín and Ferdinand II of Aragon's conspiratorial ally in Navarre, but not the castle, which he then besieged. In the early morning of 11 March 1507, an enemy party of knights fled from the castle during a heavy storm. Outraged at the ineffectiveness of the siege, Borgia chased them, only to find himself on his own. The party of knights, discovering that he was alone, trapped him in an ambush, where he received a fatal injury from a spear. He was then stripped of all his luxurious garments, valuables, and a leather mask covering half his face (disfigured, possibly by syphilis, during his late years). Borgia was left lying naked, with just a red tile covering his genitals.
Public Domain Appearances[]
All published appearances of Cesare Borgia before January 1, 1929 are public domain.
Some Notable Appearances are listed below:
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
Philosophy[]
- The Prince (1532)
- The Antichrist (1895)
- Beyond Good and Evil (1886)
- Twilight of the Idols (1889)
Non-fiction[]
- The Life of Cesare Borgia (1912)
Public Domain Movie appearances[]
- Lucrezia Borgia (1922)
- Don Juan (1926)
Public Domain Comic Appearances[]
- Captain Marvel Adventures #8-9
- Sparkling Stars #29
- Baffling Mysteries #8
Notes[]
- Cesare Borgia briefly employed Leonardo da Vinci as a military architect and engineer between 1502 and 1503. Cesare provided Leonardo with an unlimited pass to inspect and direct all ongoing and planned construction in his domain. While in Romagna, Leonardo built the canal from Cesena to the Porto Cesenatico.
- When "Stinky" Printwhistle transformed into Ibac he would gain the terror of Ivan the Terrible, the cunning of Cesare Borgia, the fierceness of Attila the Hun, and the cruelty of Caligula.