Sex, Incest, Poison, Murder — and What Was Actually True
There are corrupt Renaissance families.
There are murderous Renaissance families.
There are sexually scandalous Renaissance families.
And then there are the Borgias.
Five centuries after their political power disappeared, the name still conjures images of poisoned wine, murdered husbands, naked Vatican banquets, incestuous siblings, illegitimate papal children and corpses mysteriously appearing in the River Tiber.
Some accusations are nonsense.
Some are probably propaganda.
Some remain genuinely mysterious.
And rather inconveniently for anyone attempting to rehabilitate the Borgias, some of the scandals are substantially true.
So rather than simply repeating the stories, let us put the Borgias on trial.
Scandal One: The Pope Had Children
Verdict: GUILTY
There is no serious dispute here.
Before becoming Pope Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia fathered several children.
His long-term mistress Vannozza dei Cattanei was mother to the most famous Borgia siblings:
Cesare.
Juan — or Giovanni.
Lucrezia.
Gioffre.
Rodrigo acknowledged them and promoted their interests.
Nor did becoming pope suddenly produce celibacy.
Alexander continued to be associated with women, most famously the beautiful Giulia Farnese.
The scandal therefore isn’t that hostile propagandists invented Alexander’s sexual life.
They didn’t need to.
The pope really did have children.
Scandal Two: Giulia Farnese Slept With the Pope
Verdict: ALMOST CERTAINLY GUILTY
Giulia Farnese became famous as Giulia la Bella — Julia the Beautiful.
She was young.
Alexander was considerably older.
Their relationship was widely recognised.
But the affair becomes much more interesting when we look at Giulia’s family.
Her brother was Alessandro Farnese.
Alexander made Alessandro a cardinal in 1493.
This naturally produced the mocking suggestion that Alessandro owed his red hat to his sister’s bed.
He was even derided as the “petticoat cardinal.”
And then history produced one of its wonderful twists.
Alessandro Farnese eventually became:
Pope Paul III.
Yes.
The brother of Alexander VI’s mistress became pope.
And Paul III later commissioned Michelangelo to undertake the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.
There is tonight’s Borgia–Michelangelo connection.
Scandal Three: Alexander Bought the Papacy
Verdict: VERY POSSIBLY — BUT WITH QUALIFICATIONS
The conclave of 1492 was surrounded by accusations of simony — buying ecclesiastical office.
Rodrigo Borgia certainly deployed patronage and promises aggressively.
His opponents accused him of effectively purchasing votes.
But conclaves were political affairs.
Cardinals negotiated.
Benefits were promised.
Alliances were constructed.
Alexander’s election therefore cannot simply be reduced to:
Rodrigo handed everyone bags of gold and bought himself a tiara.
But neither should we imagine an entirely spiritual gathering of holy men quietly waiting for divine inspiration.
Renaissance conclaves were politics conducted in scarlet robes.
Scandal Four: Cesare Murdered His Brother Juan
Verdict: NOT PROVEN
Juan Borgia disappeared in June 1497.
His body was recovered from the Tiber.
He had been stabbed.
His money remained with him.
This was murder.
The mystery is who ordered it.
Cesare later benefited enormously because he eventually assumed the secular role Juan had occupied.
That provided motive.
But motive is not evidence.
Other political and personal enemies had plausible reasons to kill Juan.
The earliest evidence does not establish Cesare as the murderer.
Posterity eventually decided that Cesare was precisely the sort of man who would murder his brother.
Perhaps he was.
We still cannot prove that he did.
Scandal Five: Lucrezia Committed Incest With Cesare
Verdict: ALMOST CERTAINLY NOT GUILTY
Here we encounter one of the most damaging Borgia legends.
Lucrezia supposedly had sexual relationships with her brother Cesare.
Sometimes Juan is added.
And occasionally her father Alexander joins the family arrangement.
There is no convincing evidence establishing these incestuous relationships.
The accusation emerged particularly viciously during the destruction of Lucrezia’s first marriage.
Her husband Giovanni Sforza was being publicly humiliated.
The Borgias claimed the marriage had never been consummated.
The implication was obvious:
Giovanni was impotent.
Giovanni retaliated.
If Lucrezia’s father wanted her back, he suggested, perhaps it was because the pope wanted her for himself.
Thus one of history’s greatest sexual scandals may have originated partly in an extremely nasty divorce.
Scandal Six: Giovanni Sforza Was Forced to Declare Himself Impotent
Verdict: SUBSTANTIALLY TRUE
The Borgias had arranged Lucrezia’s marriage to Giovanni Sforza because the alliance was politically useful.
Then it stopped being useful.
Alexander wanted the marriage annulled.
The simplest canonical argument was non-consummation.
Giovanni resisted.
Understandably.
Accepting the annulment effectively required accepting public humiliation concerning his sexual capacity.
Eventually the marriage was annulled.
Lucrezia was declared a virgin.
And Giovanni Sforza went away furious.
One should never underestimate the historical consequences of publicly questioning a Renaissance man’s performance in bed.
Scandal Seven: Lucrezia Had a Secret Child
Verdict: SOMETHING VERY STRANGE HAPPENED
Now we reach one of the great Borgia mysteries.
A boy named Giovanni Borgia appeared.
He became known as the Infans Romanus — the Roman Infant.
And then came two extraordinary papal documents.
In one, the boy was described as Cesare’s son.
In another, Alexander VI acknowledged the boy as his own.
Two fathers.
One child.
Both Borgias.
Naturally historians began asking:
Who was the mother?
One theory eventually implicated Lucrezia.
That produced the perfect Borgia scandal:
Was Giovanni the child of Lucrezia and Cesare?
Lucrezia and Alexander?
Someone else entirely?
There is no solid evidence proving Lucrezia was Giovanni’s mother.
But the contradictory documentation surrounding his paternity ensured that rumours flourished.
The Borgias had effectively manufactured their own mystery.
Scandal Eight: Pedro Calderón Ended Up in the Tiber
Verdict: DEAD — CIRCUMSTANCES SUSPICIOUS
During the period surrounding Lucrezia’s marital difficulties, a young Spaniard in Alexander’s household named Pedro Calderón — known as Perotto — became associated with her.
Rumours circulated.
Then Perotto disappeared.
His body was reportedly recovered from the Tiber.
A female servant connected with Lucrezia also died.
Cesare was suspected.
Did Perotto have an affair with Lucrezia?
Was she pregnant?
Was he murdered to protect the family’s reputation?
The evidence does not permit certainty.
But yet another inconvenient body had appeared in Roman water.
The Tiber was becoming alarmingly useful to the Borgias.
Scandal Nine: Cesare Murdered Lucrezia’s Second Husband
Verdict: VERY PROBABLY GUILTY
Lucrezia’s second husband was Alfonso of Aragon.
Initially the marriage suited Borgia diplomacy.
Then Alexander and Cesare shifted politically towards France.
Alfonso became inconvenient.
In July 1500 he was attacked and seriously wounded.
He survived.
Lucrezia helped nurse him.
Then in August he was killed.
Cesare’s feared associate Micheletto Corella was intimately connected with the killing.
Cesare apparently justified Alfonso’s death by claiming Alfonso had plotted against him.
Whatever the precise sequence, historians generally regard Cesare’s responsibility as highly probable.
Lucrezia was reportedly devastated.
This is one Borgia murder that requires relatively little later embellishment.
Scandal Ten: The Banquet of Chestnuts
Verdict: POSSIBLY BASED ON A REAL EVENT — DETAILS DISPUTED
31 October 1501.
The Vatican.
Cesare Borgia.
Courtesans.
Nudity.
Chestnuts.
Sexual contests.
Prizes.
Welcome to the Banquet of Chestnuts.
The famous account appears in the diary associated with Johann Burchard, papal master of ceremonies.
According to the notorious description, courtesans danced after dinner, eventually naked. Chestnuts were scattered across the floor and the women gathered them while crawling among the guests.
The evening supposedly culminated in sexual contests with prizes.
It is difficult to imagine a story better designed for the Borgia reputation.
Yet historians remain cautious.
Questions surround the transmission and interpretation of the account, and later retellings enthusiastically expanded Borgia sexual mythology.
Something scandalous may indeed have occurred.
Whether every delicious detail repeated today should be accepted unquestioningly is another matter.
Historical verdict:
Keep the chestnuts. Apply caution to the orgy.
Scandal Eleven: The Borgias Had Their Own Secret Poison — Cantarella
Verdict: PROBABLY LEGEND
Cantarella became the great Borgia murder weapon.
A mysterious poison.
Odourless.
Deadly.
Convenient.
Alexander and Cesare supposedly used it to eliminate wealthy cardinals and political enemies.
The problem is that convincing contemporary evidence for a special Borgia poison called cantarella is lacking.
Poison existed.
Poisoning occurred.
Renaissance rulers feared poisoning.
Arsenic and other toxic substances were known.
But the legendary Borgia poison became increasingly elaborate as stories accumulated.
Cantarella belongs more securely to Borgia mythology than documented Borgia pharmacology.
Scandal Twelve: The Borgias Poisoned Wealthy Cardinals and Stole Their Property
Verdict: UNPROVEN
This story made excellent political propaganda.
Invite cardinal to dinner.
Poison cardinal.
Cardinal dies.
Pope acquires property.
Repeat.
There were certainly financial incentives surrounding ecclesiastical appointments and deaths.
Alexander was certainly financially acquisitive.
But systematic poisoning of cardinals as a Borgia fundraising programme is not established by reliable evidence.
Once again:
a plausible Renaissance fear became a historical certainty through repetition.
Scandal Thirteen: Alexander Accidentally Drank His Own Poison
Verdict: ALMOST CERTAINLY FALSE
This is perhaps the most satisfying Borgia legend.
Alexander and Cesare supposedly planned to poison a wealthy cardinal.
The poisoned wine was accidentally served to them.
Cesare survived.
Alexander died.
The great poisoner destroyed by his own poison.
Perfect.
Too perfect.
Alexander and Cesare both became seriously ill during the Roman summer of 1503.
Malaria or another infectious fever provides a much more plausible explanation.
Alexander died.
Cesare survived.
But history loves poetic justice.
So fever became poison.
Scandal Fourteen: Alexander’s Corpse Became Monstrous Because the Devil Claimed Him
Verdict: DECOMPOSITION
Accounts of Alexander’s body are gruesome.
It became swollen.
Darkened.
Difficult to handle.
Later anti-Borgia writers saw divine judgement.
There is a simpler explanation.
Rome.
August.
Heat.
Disease.
A dead body.
Rapid decomposition is not evidence of Satan.
Though admittedly Satan makes better television.
Scandal Fifteen: Cesare Had His Enemies Strangled
Verdict: GUILTY
Unlike the poisoning legends, Cesare’s use of political killing is well documented.
The events at Senigallia in 1502 demonstrate it spectacularly.
Cesare’s rebellious commanders believed reconciliation had occurred.
Cesare received them.
Then arrested them.
Vitellozzo Vitelli and Oliverotto da Fermo were strangled.
Others subsequently died.
Machiavelli was nearby observing Cesare’s methods.
This is important.
When reliable evidence demonstrates Cesare’s brutality, we should accept it.
Rejecting Borgia mythology does not require sanitising the Borgias.
Scandal Sixteen: Cesare Had His Own Governor Cut in Half and Displayed in Public
Verdict: ESSENTIALLY GUILTY
Remirro de Orco had governed the Romagna brutally on Cesare’s behalf.
Then Cesare needed to distance himself from that brutality.
The people of Cesena awoke to discover Remirro’s mutilated corpse publicly displayed.
Machiavelli later used the episode in The Prince.
The political message was magnificent in its horror.
Order had been restored.
The hated enforcer was dead.
Cesare could present himself as the source of justice rather than cruelty.
This was Renaissance public relations performed with a corpse.
Scandal Seventeen: Lucrezia Was a Serial Poisoner
Verdict: NOT GUILTY
The famous image of Lucrezia carrying poison inside a hollow ring belongs largely to later legend.
There is no convincing evidence that Lucrezia systematically poisoned people.
Indeed, as she grew older and escaped the immediate orbit of Alexander and Cesare, she developed into a respected duchess at Ferrara.
She administered estates.
Patronised artists.
Managed correspondence.
Participated in government.
And became associated with one of Renaissance Italy’s sophisticated courts.
The poisoner Lucrezia is largely a creation of hostile propaganda and later literature.
The historical woman is much more interesting.
Scandal Eighteen: Lucrezia Was Blonde, Beautiful and Irresistible
Verdict: PROBABLY BLONDE — BEAUTY REMAINS SUBJECTIVE
A lock of hair traditionally associated with Lucrezia survives in Milan and appears golden-blonde.
Contemporary descriptions praise her appearance.
But even here legend intervenes.
The seductive Borgia femme fatale required extraordinary beauty.
Later painters and filmmakers supplied it enthusiastically.
Our image of Lucrezia has therefore become another mixture of documentation and fantasy.
Scandal Nineteen: Alexander VI Was the Worst Pope in History
Verdict: COMPETITION IS EXTREMELY STRONG
Alexander was unquestionably problematic.
Sexual relationships.
Children.
Nepotism.
Dynastic politics.
Financial manipulation.
Political violence.
But the title “worst pope ever” requires navigating some formidable competition.
Earlier medieval papal history contains murders, warfare, imprisonment, political corruption and extraordinary sexual allegations.
Alexander’s distinction is partly that his scandals occurred during an age of expanding printing and increasingly sophisticated political propaganda.
The Borgias became internationally famous at precisely the historical moment when reputations could circulate more efficiently.
They were badly behaved.
They were also badly reviewed.
Scandal Twenty: Were the Borgias Really Unusually Evil?
Verdict: YES AND NO
Here lies the central problem.
If we compare the Borgias with modern expectations of religious leadership:
appalling.
If we compare them with the ideal standards Christianity itself proclaimed:
frequently appalling.
If we compare them with Renaissance Italian politics:
Things become considerably murkier.
The Sforza murdered.
The Medici plotted.
The Orsini fought.
The Colonna fought.
Venice employed espionage.
Florence executed conspirators.
France invaded Italy.
Spain invaded Italy.
Popes commanded armies.
Political marriages were arranged and discarded.
Assassination was an accepted political possibility.
The Borgias were ruthless participants in a ruthless system.
They were not innocent victims of history.
But neither were they supernatural aberrations dropped into an otherwise peaceful Renaissance.
Why the Scandals Survived
The Borgias possessed four disastrous characteristics.
They were powerful.
They were foreigners.
They had enemies.
And they lost.
Once Alexander died and Cesare’s state collapsed, their opponents controlled much of the subsequent narrative.
The family became useful shorthand for everything supposedly corrupt about the Renaissance papacy.
Then came historians.
Novelists.
Playwrights.
Opera.
Film.
Television.
Every generation rediscovered the Borgias.
Every generation added another layer.
Eventually the Borgias ceased being merely a family.
They became a genre.
The Final Scorecard
Definitely or substantially true:
Alexander fathered children.
Alexander maintained mistresses.
Giulia Farnese was almost certainly his mistress.
Alexander promoted relatives.
Cesare abandoned the cardinalate for secular power.
Cesare used political assassination.
Cesare betrayed and killed opponents.
Alfonso of Aragon was probably killed on Cesare’s orders.
Remirro de Orco was brutally executed and displayed.
Cesare’s enemies at Senigallia were deliberately trapped and killed.
Possible but unproven:
Cesare murdered Juan.
Lucrezia had a sexual relationship with Perotto.
Cesare ordered Perotto’s death.
Some version of the Banquet of Chestnuts occurred as described.
Probably false or greatly exaggerated:
Cesare and Lucrezia committed incest.
Alexander had sex with Lucrezia.
Lucrezia was a serial poisoner.
The Borgias possessed a unique secret poison called cantarella.
Alexander and Cesare systematically poisoned cardinals for their property.
Alexander accidentally drank poison intended for someone else.
The condition of Alexander’s corpse demonstrated supernatural evil.
The Greatest Borgia Scandal
Perhaps the greatest scandal surrounding the Borgias is ultimately this:
We didn’t need to invent anything.
Alexander really was a pope with acknowledged children.
Cesare really was a cardinal who became a warlord.
Lucrezia really was repeatedly married for political advantage.
Her second husband really was murdered.
Juan really was pulled dead from the Tiber.
Cesare really did lure political opponents into a trap and have them strangled.
A brutally murdered governor really was displayed publicly.
Machiavelli really did watch Cesare operate.
And the brother of Alexander’s mistress really did become pope.
The historical Borgias were already extraordinary.
But scandal possesses its own momentum.
A suspicious death becomes poison.
A close sibling relationship becomes incest.
A mistress becomes a prostitute.
A political murder becomes pathological bloodlust.
A decomposing corpse becomes evidence of Satan.
And eventually history disappears beneath the legend.
That is why the Borgias remain fascinating.
Not because they were innocent.
Not because every accusation was true.
But because their genuine behaviour was sufficiently outrageous that the impossible stories began to sound perfectly believable.
And perhaps that is the ultimate achievement of the Borgia family:
five hundred years later, when someone tells us another outrageous story about them, our first reaction is still —
“Well… it was the Borgias.”
Tim Alderman ©️2026
Sources and Further Reading
Johann Burchard, Liber Notarum (At the Court of the Borgia), contemporary papal ceremonial diary and a major source for Alexander VI’s court.
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, particularly Chapter VII.
Niccolò Machiavelli, diplomatic correspondence and writings concerning Cesare Borgia and the events at Senigallia.
Michael Mallett, The Borgias: The Rise and Fall of the Most Infamous Family in History.
Sarah Bradford, Cesare Borgia: His Life and Times.
Sarah Bradford, Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy.
Christopher Hibbert, The Borgias and Their Enemies.
G. J. Meyer, The Borgias: The Hidden History.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, biographies of Alexander VI, Cesare Borgia and Lucrezia Borgia.
Vatican Museums, historical material concerning the Borgia Apartments, Alexander VI and Renaissance papal patronage.
For the wider political context, studies of Renaissance Italy, the Italian Wars and the papacy are essential for distinguishing genuinely unusual Borgia conduct from behaviour common among contemporary ruling dynasties.
