Essay Foundation - Alexander's Papacy/Life

Below is a part of what I've written up concerning project writing. What I've done is written about Rodrigo's life/Papacy as a foundation/base (Due to the fact that my question requires me to do so) and from there I'll be adding input from myself and my sources, such as quotes, opinions, motvies, aims, views and further evaluation. I'll continue adding layers of depth and focus on different areas as I continue writing over the next few weeks.

Rodrigo Borgia was both a famous and infamous Italian Renaissance Pope who ruled from 1492 up until his death in 1503. My main purpose is to evaluate the papacy of Rodrigo Borgia. In order to do this it is necessary to analyse the specific sources and from those sources extract content relating to Rodrigo’s life, his rise to the Papacy, actions made during his reign, views and most significant of all whether he was as vindictive as many claim or he was a good and justified Pope.

Rodrigo was a young Spaniard who was destined from the start to have a life in the church. Rodrigo early on was sent to study canon law at the University of Bologna. He had a large extended family and he knew of many who had or were destined to have roles throughout the Catholic Church, most notably his Uncle Calixtus III, who rose to the Papacy on the 8th of April 1455. In 1456, Rodrigo became a Cardinal at the young age of 25 and in the following year Calixtus III appointed his nephew to the post of vice-chancellorship of the Holy See. Throughout his time as Vice-Chancellor and Cardinal Rodrigo garnered a reputation and an accumulation of wealth, but through all these privileges that came with his position he had developed an admiration for the position of Pope, however attaining this position was no simple task.

Over the years Rodrigo served under five Popes and during this time he was having a growing influence, but he was growing in age also. He had Spanish support and he kept on good terms with both Naples and the Sforzas of Milan.

In July 1492 Pope Innocent VIII died on the 25^th, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia knew this might be his one last possible chance. He was very much in the public eye by 1492 and had attracted some interest and popularity in Rome.

The Cardinals went into the Vatican on the 6^th of August to elect Innocent’s successor. Rodrigo seemed to be against two top contenders, Cardinals della Rovere and Ascanio Sforza. Guiliano della Rovere had been Rodrigo’s bitter rival for quite some time, della Rovere was also a pro-French candidate.

The whole process lasted four days with four scrutinies. During this time Ascanio realized his chances were becoming slim and he switched his vote to Rodrigo. This gave Rodrigo the required 2/3 majority vote.  There were many rumours stating Rodrigo simply bought out (including promises of positions in his offices and benefices) the Papacy with the cardinal’s votes.

On the morning of the 11^th of August, 1492, Rodrigo Borgia was announced as the new Pope and he appeared at a window with Pope Robes. He later became known as Pope Alexander VI.

Residents eventually warmed to Alexander’s new position as he had already lived a long life in Rome. At first, Rodrigo focused on a more strict administration of justice, orderly government and he focused on his position and the problems current throughout Rome. However, there was an inevitable pull from his family and eventually his relatives were soon established in different positions throughout the Italian aristocracy and the church. Cesare, Rodrigo’s eldest son, became a Cardinal and Archbishop of Valencia, Giovanni (Juan) received the Spanish Dukedom of Gandia.

Rodrigo at this time seeked further allies, he had his daughter, Lucrezia, marry Giovanni Sforza and Jofre, his youngest son, marry the granddaughter of Naples. This would strengthen ties and give Rodrigo political advantages.

During the time the French devised plans for invasion to conquer Naples. A march through the Papal States was soon declared and to be led by Charles VIII. Charles aimed to claim the throne of Naples and the French planned to use Naples as a base for a potential crusade against the Turks. Charles moved on unresisted and eventually the French reached Rome.
Negotiations between the two sides were made. Alexander held firm against demands and ultimately Charles and his army soon left to continue on to Naples without meeting any combat. Rome was free of the French, for now.

King Alfonso II fled from Naples to Sicily and the path for the French was clear to Naples. The French took Naples and their journey had met little to no combat.

Charles however, was unable to obtain Papal investiture or Neapolitan support and so the French army turned its direction back to Rome. Alexander had no choice but to escape northwards with most of the Cardinals, eventually pursuit of the Pope became futile and Charles, once again, passed onwards.

Alexander, in the following months worked on Italian unity to prevent another danger like this from arising again and worked on Italian power base.

A campaign was then established against the Orsini, after Virginio Orsini betrayed Alexander by siding with the French, with the hopes of benefits. Virginio was soon captured by the Spanish. Alexander made Juan, Duke of Gandia command the army. The papal army captured a few Orsini castles, but the Orsini clan held out and soon defeated the army. After this a deal as made and the Orsini spent 50,000 in exchange for some of their captured lands.

On the 14^th of June another tragedy set in for the Borgia’s with Juan, Duke of Gandia found stabbed to death in the Tiber. Upon hearing this Alexander locked himself in his room with grief and wept. Juan was noted as having a long line of enemies, owing to papal property given to him by the Pope. No one was identified as the killer, but some suspected Cesare (he had since been absolved of the murder).

It was in this year that Alexander annulled the marriage of his daughter to Giovanni Sforza in order for her to marry Alfonso, Neapolitan heir (He had interest in conceiving ties with the royal family of Naples). Giovanni, outraged, denying the charge of 'non-consummation', accused the Pope of Incest.

Another character of interest at this time was Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican Friar who preached in Florence. Savonarola had great influence (even politically concerning pro-French Policy) to those who listened. For this reason and well as personal attacks on Alexander, Savonarola eventually became imprisoned and later executed.

In 1499, Louis XII after settling in the French throne required an early alliance with the Borgia Pope. Louis needed help to claim the duchy of Milan, revive French claim to Naples (which Charles had failed to do) and for his marriage to be annulled. Against public opinion, Alexander saw this as a way towards gold, riches, valuables, opportunity and as a window of advancement for Cesare, who had recently resigned his role as Cardinal. Alexander granted Louis' annulment and Cesare was soon able to marry. He became Duchy of Valence and the King even gave him command of a large body of French lancers. This deal turned into an alliance with France in early 1499, an alliance that angered many including the rulers of Naples, the Sforzas and even Spain. The Pope was creating enemies by progressing with this alliance. Spouses linked to the Borgias and Naples began to live uneasy due to this.

In the middle of 1499, Louis gathered troops for his Italian military campaign, to reclaim Milan and Naples. 1500 became Jubilee year; Cesare had a full military career, instilling fear with France and aiming to regain control of certain Papal States. The cost of his campaigns drained Papal revenues. Alexander continued to help fund Cesare for his journey and his expenses, in late 1500 he created twelve new cardinals to add to these funds. At this time Alexander's mind only seemed focused on his offspring, especially Cesare.
Alexander's expenses emptied the treasury. In mid 1501 Alexander ordered Cesare back to Rome to help partition Naples, he later blessed the French army as they went out to seize Naples. Cesare and the French continued their campaign as enemies rose, while Alexander monitored carefully. In the last years of his life, Alexander had many hostilities. The Orsini were fighting Cesare and the Spanish were fighting the French for Naples. The Pope was intrigued and caught in the middle, ready to ally himself with whichever power promised the most at any period.

Churchmen who were concerned for the faith raised the issue of a council.
In August 1503 Alexander came down heavily ill and eventually died age 73. His death was originally thought to be poison, but was in fact natural causes.

Rodrigo Borgia led an intriguing life as Pope Alexander VI. (Essay still being worked on from here).

Progress

Progress on both Mallett's book and Project Writing has continued. I'll be working on this throughout the holidays and I should hopefully be able put up a draft of my project sometime within the next week.

Here are some further details/quotes concerning Mallett's book on what I've read to date.
Mallett's work is still slightly opinionated and he seems to enjoy placing these opinions in an objective context.
"All reports emphasise the physical strength and energy of the new Pope"
"..this magnificence was a good deal more than a Borgia pageant. It was a symbol of the Renaissance Papacy; a splendid and cooperative display for an essentially worldy occasion."
"Alexander justifiably maintained.."

These are only a few examples further showing where Mallett seems to be heading.

Project writing is going smoothly, as stated before I should be able to put up a draft next week. I wrote out a guide for my essay writing in my notes, which has helped guide me through the writing process so far and should continue to do so until I finish.

Intro

My Project writing has gone underway. What I'm trying/planned to do is attack the subsidiary questions and strike the essay at its core. This will leave the structure messy, but as I write piece by piece the structure will strengthen as I do constant sweeps and write out rough drafts.
This is my intro so far to the essay, any feedback is appreciative, bear in mind though  its a rough, vague draft:

" Rodrigo Borgia was both a famous and infamous Italian Renaissance Pope from the late 15^th/ early 16^th century. He led a life of intrigue and left one burning question that many have pondered, whether he was as vindictive as many claim or a good and justified Pope. My main purpose is to evaluate the papacy of Rodrigo Borgia. "

Hopfully when time frees up soon I can write up a complete rough draft.

So far I feel pleased with my Project and where it's going. The only areas that I feel I need to improve on is devoting my time more to the project/reading and evaluating.

Unfortunately the progress through Mallett's book has slowed, but I should be able to read plenty over the next week or so and explain his view in more depth.

On The Road Again

A few pieces of good news have surfaced, firstly my computer has returned, meaning I can now more easily access my blog and most importantly properly start my project (writing). Secondly, I've read far into Mallett's book now (I'll be further evaluating later).
Next, the second season of the TV series has started to air on W., I plan to watch the series to see if any useful information appears, but I plan to put both the first and second season in the same context due to the fact its from the same source.
I evaluated the first season of the TV series in a much earlier post including all the episodes, what occurred and so on. I'll be doing the same for this season, but perhaps in a much more brief state. I find that while the TV series depicts a decent representation of the Borgias in some areas it pales in comparison to the books, which give a much more thorough, realistic and detailed explanation/depiction. In terms of the views of Rodrigo, the series presents him as corrupt, but not overly evil. This is similar to Hibbert, in the sense that neither present him as totally good nor vindictive. However, the series does present him in a slight corrupt manner.

Lastly, my project writng has finally begun. I've started making notes about who he was and the main aim of the project. I have my main question and all subsidiary questions, which were written up in an earlier post as well.

Mallett's book is interesting, he takes his own spin on events and writes in a very informative, formal manner. Like Hibbert it seems he tries to aim for objectivity, but has a slight input from his own opinions subtly through the book's context.

My next post will concern project progress and/or developments on Mallett's book.

More On Mallett

After diving deep into Mallett's book I've uncovered some interesting points. In his introduction he discusses the Borgias, the Popes and other significant historical figures/events around that time, the Italian Renaissance and his Intention, which he quotes: "It is my intention therefore in this book to present as wide a spectrum as possible of recent views about the Borgias in an attempt not to rehabilitate them but to explain them. To explain why they were so hated, so feared and so maligned; to explain what they were doing which so upset the Renaissance Italians as to bring down the whole weight of contemporary humanistic and later historical censure upon them."
However, he later writes: "It is often difficult for the historian to accept that the public image, however distorted it is, may be of more historical significance than the real, often more complex, situation.
These are some of the pitfalls which confront the Borgia historian and which can easily frighten him into the abyss of unrealistic rehabilitation on the other side of the narrow path of objective historical truth. This path is even narrower and harder to find than usual on this subject, and it would be optimistic and pretentious to imagine that this modest contribution has succeeded entirely in finding it." These quotes give us abit of insight into Mallett, he seems to want to be objective and to "explain" why the Borgias are greatly disliked, I'm quite intrigued as to how he's going to go about/manage that. The quote above also gives brief insight into how Mallett views the difficulty historians come across concerning the acceptance of the "distorted public image" over the "real, more complex situation", Mallett seems to want the objective truth, but accepts that is often difficult to find it with this subject. Mallett commenting on how historians find diffculty concerning the distorted image over the real, more complex one gives the impression that he himself believes he has uncovered that truth. As I progress more throughly in Mallett's book, more should be found, specifically what he uncovers and truly thinks/expresses.

In other news my computer has crashed, impeding my work progress, but it should be hopefully fixed within the week. Meanwhile, I've had to use this spare laptop which is painfully slow, I should cope though.

Progress and identifying Hibbert's view

After finishing Hibbert's book I have to say it was quite an interesting read, I've now delved deep into Michael Mallett's book "The Borgia's: The rise and fall of the most infamous family in history". Marion Johnson's "The Borgia's" has also arrived and unlike the other books it takes the form of a illustrated biography, with pictures, portraits, maps, family tree's, drawings/paintings of particular events/individuals and so on.

Now on to a more important topic is Hibbert's view,  Hibbert's view is difficult to identify as he writes in a very objective manner, usually using accounts from others and different sources to unravel the information he presents. The implied view is that he dismisses the vindictive and negative reputation given of the Borgia's, but accepts that at times they committed acts/made actions that would have been easily frowned upon and could be seen as crimes/deceit.
His opinion seems to me as a more neutral view of the Borgia's (or Rodrigo for that matter), where he doesn't side strongly either way.
In his bibliography its interesting to note that he focuses mostly on contemporary sources.

Planning

With the arrival of Michael Mallett's "The Borgias", which I will be beginning to read next week, I'm going to now start the planning of the actual writing of my project. Hopefully I'll be able to begin the early stages of writing next week/soon.
I'll begin doing further review of Hibbert's/Tuchman's views soon as well. However, upon reading Hibbert's book I haven't identified what his view actually is, he's very objective and justified with his writing and he uses sources/accounts from others to express his information. Still, I'll be further assessing the two later.
Apologies for not blogging lately as well, hopefully time frees up.