Borgia Sentence Examples

Aided by his terrible son, Cesare Borgia, Alexander VI.

In July occurred the murder of the duke of Bisceglie, Lucrezia Borgia's third husband.

Borgia's power was now at an end, and he was obliged to surrender all his castles in Romagna save Cesena, Forli and Bettinoro, whose governors refused to accept an order of surrender from a master who was a prisoner.

Cesare Borgia was a type of the adventurers with which the Italy of the Renaissance swarmed, but he was cleverer and more unscrupulous than his rivals.

In the 1 4 th and 5th centuries it was under the government of the Ordelaffi; and in 1500 was taken by Caesar Borgia, despite a determined resistance by Caterina Sforza, widow of Girolamo Riario.

Francisco Borgia, while duke of Gandia, petitioned Paul III.

He was born (January 1, 1431) at Xativa, near Valencia in Spain, and his father's surname was Lanzol or Llancol; that of his mother's family, Borgia or Borja, was assumed by him on the elevation of his maternal uncle to the papacy as Calixtus III.

Before his elevation to the papacy Cardinal Borgia's passion for Vannozza somewhat diminished, and she subsequently led a very retired life.

Borgia's elevation did not at the time excite much alarm, except in some of the cardinals who knew him, and at first his reign was marked by a strict administration of justice and an orderly method of government in satisfactory contrast with the anarchy of the previous pontificate, as well as by great outward splendour.

Cesare, nominated gonfaloniere of the Church, and strong in French favour, proceeded to attack the turbulent cities one by one (for detail see Borgia, Cesare).

About this time a Borgia of doubtful parentage was born, Giovanni, described in some papal documents as Alexander's son and in others as Cesare's.

His attempt to draw Florence into an alliance failed, but in July Louis of France again invaded Italy and was at once bombarded with complaints from the Borgia's enemies.

At first the papal troops were defeated and things looked black for the house of Borgia.

His goods were confiscated, his aged mother turned into the street and numbers of other members of the clan in Rome were arrested, while Giuffre Borgia led an expedition into the Campagna and seized their castles.

Thus the two great houses of Orsini and Colonna, who had long fought for predominance in Rome and often flouted the pope's authority, were subjugated, and a great step achieved towards consolidating the Borgia's power.

His one thought was family aggrandizement, and while it is unlikely that he meditated making the papacy hereditary in the house of Borgia, he certainly gave away its temporal estates to his children as though they belonged to him.

The condition of his subjects was deplorable, and if Cesare's rule in Romagna was an improvement on that of the local tyrants, the people of Rome have seldom been more oppressed than under the Borgia.

The chief ancient buildings of Gandia are the Gothic church, the college, founded by San Francisco de Borgia, director-general of the order of Jesus (1510-1572), and the palace of the dukes of Gandia - a title held in the i 5th and 16th centuries by members of the princely house of Borgia or Borja.

Cesare Borgia, who had seized many cities in Romagna, suddenly demanded the reinstatement of the Medici in Florence, and the danger was only warded off by appointing him captain-general of the Florentine forces at a large salary (1501).

But no Borgia ever forgot an enemy.

Cesare Borgia contemplated the subjugation of Bologna in 1500, when he was crushing the various despots of Romagna, but Bentivoglio was saved for the moment by French intervention.

In 1502 he took part in the conspiracy against Cesare, but, when the latter obtained French assistance, he abandoned his fellowconspirators and helped Borgia to overcome them.

In 1480, after a chequered history, the town came into the possession of Girolamo Riario, lord of Forli, as the dowry of his wife Caterina Sforza, and was incorporated with the States of the Church by Caesar Borgia in 1500.

In October he was sent, much against his will, as envoy to the camp of Cesare Borgia, duke of Valentinois.

More than once, in letters to his friend Vettori, no less than in the pages of the Principe, Machiavelli afterwards expressed his belief that Cesare Borgia's behaviour in the conquest of provinces, the cementing of a new state out of scattered elements, and the dealing with false friends or doubtful allies, was worthy of all commendation and of scrupulous imitation.

As he watched Cesare Borgia at this, the most brilliant period of his adventurous career, the man became idealized in his reflective but imaginative mind.

That Machiavelli separated the actual Cesare Borgia, whom he afterwards saw, ruined and contemptible, at Rome, from this radiant creature of his political fancy, is probable.

On his return to Florence early in January 1503, Machiavelli began to occupy himself with a project which his recent attendance upon Cesare Borgia had strengthened in his mind.

His reading in Livy taught him to admire the Roman system of employing armies raised from the body of the citizens; and Cesare Borgia's method of gradually substituting the troops of his own duchy for aliens and mercenaries showed him that this plan might be adopted with success by the Italians.

The choice of Soderini and Machiavelli fell, at this juncture, upon an extremely ineligible person, none other than Don Micheletto, Cesare Borgia's cutthroat and assassin.

Supported by the power of the papacy, with the goodwill of Florence to back him, Giuliano would have found himself in a position somewhat better than that of Cesare Borgia; and Borgia's creation of the duchy of Romagna might have served as his model.

Dealing freely with the outline of Castruccio's career, as he had previously dealt with Cesare Borgia, he sketched his own ideal of the successful prince.

Cesare Borgia had entered into the Principe as a representative figure rather than an actual personage; so now conversely the theories of the Principe assumed the outward form and semblance of Castruccio.

After further struggles between Guelphs and Ghibellines, the Manfredi made themselves masters of the place early in the 14th century, and remained in power until 1501, when the town was taken by Caesar Borgia and the last legitimate members of the house of the Manfredi were drowned in the Tiber; and, after falling for a few years into the hands of the Venetians, it became a part of the states of the church in 1509.

In Spain, national pride in the founder aided the Society's cause almost as much as royal patronage did in Portugal; and the third house was opened in Gandia under the protection of its duke, Francisco Borgia, a grandson of Alexander VI.

In 1548 the Society received a valuable recruit in the person of Francisco Borgia, duke of Gandia, afterwards thrice general, while two important events marked 1550 - the foundation of the Collegio Romano and a fresh confirmation of the Society by Julius III.

He died in 1564, leaving the Society increased to eighteen provinces with a hundred and thirty colleges, and was succeeded by Francisco Borgia.

Everard Mercurian, a Fleming, and a subject of Spain, succeeded Borgia in 1 573, being forced on the Society by the pope, in preference to Polanco, Ignatius's secretary and the vicar-general, who was rejected partly as a Spaniard and still more because he was a "New Christian" of Jewish origin and therefore objected to in Spain itself.

In 1497 he was expelled from Urbino by Caesar Borgia, son of Alexander VI., but regained his dukedom in 1503, after Caesar's death.

The short reign of the Spaniard, Alphonso de Borgia, as Pope Calixtus III., is almost completely filled by his heroic lll., efforts to arm Christendom for the common defence Calixtus 1455-1458.

Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, a man of the most abandoned morals, who did not change his mode of life when he ascended the throne as Pope Alexander VI.

The last state now became worse than the first, as Alexander fell more and more under the spell of the infamous Cesare Borgia.

The fruits of this compact were reaped by Cesare Borgia, who resigned his cardinal's hat, became duke of Valentinois, annihilated the minor nobles of the papal state, and made himself the true dictator of Rome.

The Borgia's foremost thought had been for his family; Julius devoted his effort to the Church and the papacy.

A rivalry, however, growing up between him and Roderigo Borgia, he took refuge at Ostia after the latter's election as Alexander VI., and in 1494 went to France, where he incited Charles VIII.

Della Rovere then won the support of Cesare Borgia and was unanimously elected pope.

By dexterous diplomacy he first succeeded (1504) in rendering it impossible for Cesare Borgia to remain in Italy.

The Sienese tyrant, however, did not fall into the trap, and although Borgia in 1 502 obliged him to quit Siena, he returned two months later, more powerful than before.

Accordingly he suddenly took service, in the spring of 1502, with Cesare Borgia, duke of Valentinois, then almost within sight of the realization of his huge ambitions, and meanwhile occupied in consolidating his recent conquests in the Romagna.

During these years, 1503-1506, Leonardo also resumed (if it is true that he had already begun it before his travels with Cesare Borgia) the portrait of Madonna Lisa, the Neapolitan wife of Zanobi del Giocondo, and finished it to the last pitch of his powers.

Three historians had been partly educated in Rome under the protection of Prince Borgia and the influence of the Jesuit Minotto and the College of the Propaganda; they were Samuel Klain, Petru Maior and George Sincai.

This pope was notorious for nepotism, and was responsible for introducing his nephew, Rodrigo Borgia, afterwards Pope Alexander VI., to Rome.

It was not hard to attack the system under which Rodrigo Borgia wore the tiara, while Girolamo Savonarola went to the stake; or in which Julius II.

The tragedy of Lucrece Borgia, coequal in beauty and power with its three precursors, followed next year in the humbler garb of prose; but the prose of Victor Hugo stands higher on the record of poetry than the verse of any lesser dramatist or poet.

In 1499, appealed to by Venice, and encouraged by his favorite, Cardinal dAmboise (who was hoping to succeed Pope Alexander VI.), and also by Cesare Borgia, who had lofty ambitions in Italy, Louis XII.

Lucrezia Borgia, for instance, frequently did the same.

In 1500, when Cesare Borgia fell on Romagna with violence and fraud, this Malatesta shared the fate of other petty tyrants and had to fly for his life.

After the fall of the Borgia he returned, but, being bitterly detested by his people, decided to sell his rights to the Venetians, who had long desired to possess Rimini, and who gave him in exchange the town of Cittadella, some ready money, and a pension for life.

Who among us does not miss the gentle ministrations, the softening influences, the humble piety of Lucretia Borgia?

At the very time (December 1516) that peace between France, Spain, Venice and the Empire seemed to give some promise of a Christendom united against the Turk, Leo was preparing an enterprise as unscrupulous as any of the similar exploits of Cesare Borgia.

A characteristic instance of the corruption of the papal court is the fact that Borgia's daughter Lucrezia (see Borgia, LucREZIA) lived with his mistress Giulia, who bore him a daughter Laura in 1492.

Now occurred the first of those ugly domestic tragedies for which the house of Borgia remained famous.

The disorganization of the Curia was appalling, the sale of offices became a veritable scandal, the least opposition to the Borgia was punished with death, and even in that corrupt age the state of things shocked public opinion.

Three more high personages fell victims to the Borgia's greed this year, viz.

He bought a vigna in the Borgo near the Vatican, and thereon erected a sumptuous palace after designs by Bramante; and it was here, in the summer of 1503, that he entertained the pope and Cesare Borgia at a banquet that went on till nightfall despite the unhealthy season of the year, when ague in its most malignant form was rife.

His attitude towards Cesare Borgia was exceedingly astute; at first he assisted him, and obtained from him with the favour of the French king the cession of Piombino; but having subsequently aroused the suspicions of Borgia, the latter attempted to suppress Petrucci by inviting him to the fatal meeting of Senigallia.

She bore him two sons, Rodrigo, who was once selected to be the husband of Lucrezia Borgia, and Diego, who was the grandfather of the princess of Eboli of the reign of Philip II (see Perez, Antonio.) By another lady of a Valladolid family he had a third son who afterwards emigrated to France.

Gregorovius's Lucrezia Borgia (Stuttgart, 1874) contains a great deal of information on the Borgia family; P. Villari's Machiavelli (English translation, new ed., 1892) deals with the subject at some length.

Leonardo da Vinci, the famous artist, while in the service of Cesare Borgia as military engineer, made surveys of several districts in central Italy.

He successfully withstood all opposition within the state, until he was at last worsted in his struggle with Cesare Borgia, who caused his expulsion from Siena in 1502.