Cesare Borgia (13 September 1475 – 12 March 1507) was an Italian cardinal deacon and later a condottiero, as well as a member of the Spanish House of Borgia.Borgia Family, descendants of a noble line, originally from Valencia, Spain, that established roots in Italy and became prominent in ecclesiastical and political affairs in the 1400s and 1500s. He was the illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI and sibling to Lucrezia Borgia.
After initially entering the Church and becoming a cardinal on his father's election to the papacy, he resigned his diaconal profession after his brother was murdered in 1497. He was employed as a condottiero for King Louis XII of France around 1500, and occupied both Milan and Naples during the Italian Wars. At the same time, he carved out a state for himself in Central Italy, but he was unable to retain power for long after his father's death. His quest for political power was a major inspiration for The Prince by the renowned Florentine historian, Niccolò Machiavelli..
Early life
Like many aspects of Cesare Borgia's life, the date of his birth is a subject of dispute. He was born in Subiaco, Papal States (now in Lazio, Italy), in either 1475 or 1476, the illegitimate son of Cardinal Roderic Llançol i de Borja, usually known as "Rodrigo Borgia", later Pope Alexander VI, and his Italian mistress Vannozza dei Cattanei, about whom information is sparse. He had three full siblings: Giovanni Borgia, Lucrezia Borgia, and Gioffre Borgia, although Gioffre's paternity was later contested.
The Borgia family originally came from the Kingdom of Valencia, and rose to prominence during the mid-15th century. Cesare's great-uncle Alphonso Borgia (1378–1458), Bishop of Valencia, was elected Pope Callixtus III in 1455.Herfried Münkler and Marina Münkler, Lexikon der Renaissance, Munich: Beck, 2000, pp. 43ff. Cesare's father, Pope Alexander VI, was the first pope who openly recognized his children born out of wedlock.
The Italian historian Stefano Infessura writes that Cardinal Borgia falsely claimed Cesare to be the legitimate son of another man, Domenico d'Arignano, the nominal husband of Vannozza dei Cattanei. More likely, Pope Sixtus IV granted Cesare a release from the necessity of proving his birth in a papal bull of 1 October 1480.Sabatini (pp. 45, 48), citing the supplement to the Appendix of Thuasne's edition of Burchard's Diarium
Career
Diaconate
Cesare was initially groomed for a career in the Roman Catholic Church. Following school in Perugia and Pisa, Cesare studied law at the Studium Urbis (today as the Sapienza University of Rome). He was made Bishop of Archdiocese of Pamplona and Tudela (aged 15) and Archbishop of Valencia (aged 17). In 1493, he had also been appointed bishop of both Castres and Elne. In 1494, he also received the title of abbot of the abbey of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa. Along with his father's elevation to Pope, Cesare was made Cardinal at the age of 18.
Alexander VI staked the hopes of the Borgia family on Cesare's brother Giovanni, who was made captain-general of the military forces of the papacy. Giovanni was assassinated in 1497 under mysterious circumstances. Several contemporaries suggested that Cesare had been his killer. Some argue that a personal rivalry existed between them and, with Giovanni's death, Cesare was allowed to leave the Church as he wished, taking his brother's place as a man-at-arms and eventually the prospective ruler of a Borgia principality.Christopher Hibbert: The Borgias and Their Enemies, Harcourt, Inc. 2008, p. 30Sarah Bradford: Cesare Borgia: His Life and Times, London, 1976, p. 17 The claim that Cesare was his brother's murderer is first found in a despatch of the Ferrarese ambassador at Venice: "I recently learned how the death of the Duke of Candia was caused by his brother, the Cardinal", he wrote on 22 February 1498.The words of Giovanni Alberto della Pigna are cited by Ferdinand Gregorovius: Lucrezia Borgia nach Urkunden und Correspondenzen ihrer eigenen Zeit, Vol. 1., Stuttgart, J. G. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung, 1874, p. 161 Cesare's role in the act has never been clear. However, he had no definitive motive, as he was likely to be given a powerful secular position, whether or not his brother lived. It is possible that Giovanni was killed as a result of a sexual liaison.Michael de la Bedoyere, The Meddlesome Friar and the Wayward Pope, p. 20, Quote: "Next morning the absence of the Duke was noticed by his servants, and the Pontiff was informed. He was not too worried, for, as Burchard says, Alexander jumped to the conclusion that his son had spent the night with some girl and preferred to avoid the indiscretion of leaving by day. It may be mentioned in passing that this touch, as with many others one comes across, hardly squares with the general view that the Pope, his family and those around him were without shame. Juan was a dissolute young man and not a churchman, yet Alexander presumed on a discretion more in keeping with later times."
On 17 August 1498, Cesare resigned from the cardinalate in order to pursue a military career. On the same day, Louis XII named Cesare Duke of Valentinois. This random title was selected as being homophonous with his nickname Il Valentino ("The Valencian"), derived from his father's papal epithet in Latin Valentinus ("The Valencian")See inscription on 5 Ducat piece of his father Pope Alexander VI "Alexander VI Pontifex Maximus Borgia Valentinus" ("The Valencian", his epithet indicating his birth in Xàtiva in the Kingdom of Valencia under the Crown of Aragon (now Spain) indicating his birth in Xàtiva in the Kingdom of Valencia under the Crown of Aragon, and along with Cesare's former position as Cardinal of Valencia. On 6 September 1499, he was released from all ecclesiastical duties and laicised from his diaconal orders (because he only was ordained deacon on 26 March 1494 and never received other major orders as priesthood and bishop consecration).
Military Cesare's career was founded upon his father's ability to distribute patronage, along with his alliance with France (reinforced by his marriage with Charlotte d'Albret, sister of John III of Navarre), in the course of the Italian Wars. Louis XII invaded Italy in 1499; after Gian Giacomo Trivulzio had ousted its duke Ludovico Sforza, Cesare accompanied the king in his entrance into Milan.
At this point, Alexander decided to profit from the favorable situation and carve out for Cesare a state of his own in northern Italy. To this end, he declared that all his vicars in Romagna and Marche were deposed.
Cesare was appointed commander of the papal armies with a number of Italian mercenaries, supported by 300 cavalry and 4,000 Swiss infantry sent by the king of France. Alexander sent him to capture Imola and Forlì, ruled by Caterina Sforza (mother of the Medici condottiero Giovanni dalle Bande Nere). Despite being deprived of his French troops after the conquest of those two cities, Borgia returned to Rome to celebrate a triumph and to receive the title of Papal Gonfalonier from his father. In 1500, the creation of twelve new cardinals granted Alexander enough money for Cesare to hire the condottieri, Vitellozzo Vitelli, Gian Paolo Baglioni, Giulio and Paolo Orsini, and Oliverotto Euffreducci, who resumed his campaign in Romagna.
Giovanni Sforza, first husband of Cesare's sister Lucrezia, was soon ousted from Pesaro; Pandolfo Malatesta lost Rimini; Faenza surrendered, its young lord Astorre III Manfredi being later drowned in the Tiber by Cesare's order. In May 1501, the latter was created Duke of Romagna. Hired by Florence, Cesare subsequently added the lordship of Piombino to his new lands.Hibbert, pgs. 148, 169, and 270
While his condottieri took over the siege of Piombino which ended in 1502, Cesare commanded the French troops in the sieges of Naples and Capua, defended by Prospero and Fabrizio Colonna. On 24 June 1501, Borgia's troops stormed the latter to end the siege of Capua.
In June 1502, he set out for Marche, where he was able to capture Urbino and Camerino by treason. He planned to conquer Bologna next. However, his condottieri, most notably Vitellozzo Vitelli and the Orsini brothers (Giulio, Paolo, and Francesco), feared Cesare's cruelty and set up a plot against him. Guidobaldo da Montefeltro and Giovanni Maria da Varano returned to Urbino and Camerino, and Fossombrone revolted. The fact that his subjects had enjoyed his rule thus far meant that his opponents had to work much harder than they would have liked. He eventually recalled his loyal generals to Imola, where he waited for his opponents' loose alliance to collapse. On 31 December 1502, Cesare called for a reconciliation, but imprisoned his condottieri in Senigallia, then called Sinigaglia, a feat described as a "wonderful deceiving" by historian Paolo Giovio,Rendina, p. 250. and had them strangled. In 1503, he conquered the Republic of San Marino.
Later years and death Although he was an immensely capable general and statesman, Cesare had trouble maintaining his domain without continued papal patronage. Niccolò Machiavelli cites Cesare's dependence on the goodwill of the papacy, under the control of his father, as being the principal disadvantage of his rule. Machiavelli argued that, had Cesare been able to win the favour of the new Pope, he would have been a very successful ruler. The news of his father's death in 1503 arrived when Cesare was planning the conquest of Tuscany. While he was convalescing in Castel Sant'Angelo from an attack of malarial fever (likely contracted on the same occasion when Alexander contracted his fatal illness), his troops controlled the September 1503 papal conclave.
The new pope, Pope Pius III, supported Cesare Borgia and reconfirmed him as Gonfaloniere, but after a brief pontificate of twenty-six days, he died. Borgia's deadly enemy, Giuliano Della Rovere, then succeeded by dexterous diplomacy in tricking the weakened Cesare Borgia into supporting him by offering him money and continued papal backing for Borgia policies in the Romagna; promises which he disregarded upon his election as Pope Julius II by the near-unanimous vote of the cardinals in the October 1503 papal conclave. Realizing his mistake by then, Cesare tried to correct the situation in his favour, but Pope Julius II made sure of its failure at every turn. Cesare was, for example, forced by Julius to give up San Marino, after occupying the republic for six months.Paul Joseph The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives: Volume IV, 2017, p. 1511.
Cesare Borgia, who was facing the hostility of Ferdinand II of Aragon, was captured while in Naples by Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, a man he had considered his ally, and imprisoned there, while his lands were retaken by the papacy. In 1504, he was transferred to Spain and imprisoned first in the Castle of Chinchilla de Montearagón in La Mancha, but after an attempted escape he was moved north to the Castle of La Mota, Medina del Campo, near Segovia. He did manage to escape from the Castle of La Mota with assistance, and after running across Santander, Durango, and Gipuzkoa, he arrived in Pamplona on 3 December 1506, and was much welcomed by King John III of Navarre,Bustillo Kastrexana, J. p. 11 who was missing an experienced military commander, ahead of the feared Castilian invasion.