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Cesare Borgia

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Cesare Borgia.
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Cesare Borgia.

Cesare Borgia (September 13, 1475 – March 12, 1507), Duke of Valentinois, and Romagna, Prince of Andria and Venafro, Count of Dyois, Lord of Piombino, Camerino and Urbino, Gonfalonier and Captain-General of Holy Church , was a Spanish-Italian condottiero, lord and cardinal. The son of Rodrigo Borgia, the future Pope Alexander VI, and Vannozza dei Cattani, he was the older brother to Lucrezia Borgia.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Cesare's father, Rodrigo Borgia, was an important cardinal and nephew of Pope Calixtus III. Rodrigo planned to use the forces of the papacy to further his own family. After years of scheming, Rodrigo was elected Pope in 1492.

Cesare was initially groomed by his father for a career in the church as was customary in those days to save a religious career for the youngest male child. Following school in Milan where Cesare studied law, and his father's elevation to Pope, Cesare was made Cardinal at the age of 22. Alexander VI staked the hopes for the Borgia family on Cesare's brother Juan, who was made captain general of the military forces of the papacy. When Juan was assassinated, Alexander was forced to substitute Cesare, despite the fact that this conflicted with Cesare's vows.

Military career

Cesare's career was founded entirely upon his father's ability to distribute patronage. Appointed commander of the papal armies, Cesare was sent by his father to subdue the cities of Romagna in central Italy. Though in theory subject directly to the pope, the rulers of these cities had been practically independent or dependent on other states for generations. Alexander VI hoped that by subduing them his son would create a new central Italian kingdom that would rival Naples, Florence, Milan and Venice.

Cesare Borgia briefly employed Leonardo da Vinci as military architect and engineer at one point. Leonardo had worked at the Milanese court of Ludovico Sforza for many years, until Charles VIII of France drove Sforza out of Italy.

Though an immensely capable general and statesman, Cesare could do nothing without continued papal patronage. The death of his father ended his own career. Gravely ill at the time that his father died in 1503, he was seized and imprisoned by his political enemies, led by Pope Julius II. Exiled to Spain, in 1504, he escaped from a Spanish prison two years later and joined his brother-in-law, King John III of Navarre. In his service, Cesare died at the siege of Viana in 1507, at the age of thirty-one.

Cesare Borgia was greatly admired by Niccolò Machiavelli, who knew him personally. Machiavelli used many of his exploits and tactics as examples in The Prince. A few scholars, however, have argued that Machiavelli's praise for Borgia was a parody, to cover up the actual anti-hero of the work, Ferdinand II of Aragon.

It has been suggested that some pictures of Jesus Christ produced around Borgia's lifetime were based on Cesare Borgia, and that this in turn has influenced images of Jesus produced since that time. #redirect

Marriage and children

On May 10, 1499, Cesare married Charlotte d'Albret (1480 - March 11, 1514. She was a sister of John III of Navarre. They were parents to a daughter:

Cesare was also father to at least two illegitimate children. Girolamo Borgia who married Isabella Contessa di Carpi and Lucrezia Borgia (d. 1573), Abbess of San Bernardino in Ferrara.

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"|Preceded by:
Guidobaldo I

|width="30%" align="center" rowspan=""|Succeeded by:
Francesco Maria I |- |}

 

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