What Happened to the Bones of Cesare Borgia?
The final fate of Machiavelli’s perfect Renaissance prince
Perhaps no name in the Renaissance world is as infamous as Borgia. The Aragonese noble family came to dominate Italian political life under the controversial Alexander VI, better known as Rodrigo Borgia.
The family were accused of just about everything, including murder, simony (the selling of church offices), bribery, blackmail and even incest, most famously between the Pope’s daughter Lucrezia and the protagonist (or antagonist depending on your perspective) of this article — Cesare Borgia.
Cesare was an icon of his time, feared and respected, infamous and brutal. But even to his enemies, what happened to him after his death seemed a cruel and unusual fate.
Life in the Church
To fully understand the fate of his remains, we first need to understand the man himself. He was the second son of Rodrigo Borgia and a woman named Vannozza, a long-term mistress of Rodrigo. His half-brother, Pedro Luis, was the oldest and was granted the title of Duke of Gandía. As the second son, Cesare was bound to…
