“The Borgias: The Hidden History”, by G. J. Meyer

512 pages, Bantam, ISBN-13: 978-0345526922

The Borgias: The Hidden History by G. J. Meyer can best be described as Revisionist History, but of the good kind: rather than try to take down a beloved historical figure, or reinterpret a positive event as a negative imbroglio, he does rather the opposite by taking this infamous Spanish clan and rehabilitating them through – get this – research and facts. Now, as educated people-of-the-world, I know full well, Dear Reader, that you know who the Borgias were…but for all of you cretins who wouldn’t know Spain from Italy, here’s a primer for you: the Borgias were a Spanish – or rather, Aragonese – noble family whose topographic surname was taken the town of Borja, then in the Crown of Aragon, in Spain. There were several of them running about Renaissance Spain and Italy, but only a few concern Meyer and, by extension, Us:

• Alfonso de Borgia, later Pope Callixtus III 
• Rodrigo de Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI
• Giovanni Borgia, 2^nd Duke of Gandía and a non-entity 
• Cesare Borgia, Duke of Valentinois with the hottest head in the clan 
• Lucrezia Borgia, Governor of Spoleto (!) and perhaps the most notorious of the lot

Meyer takes the position that pretty much the whole great Borgia story as we know it (and shudder at) was written down years after the fact, with no documentary evidence or even support for the less controversial claims, much less the more outrageous ones. For instance, after researching their heritage, Meyer concludes that Rodrigo de Borja was supporting his legitimate nephews and niece, and not his natural children (the family tree is more like a dense and bushy thicket here). Nepotism happened, but not out of proportion to other clerical families, and there were times it made a certain amount of sense in political context. Brute-force power politics happened, but this was the age of Machiavelli and of the Italian Wars. After Meyer goes on to point out other elements of the classic story that simply cannot be true for chronological or medical reasons, there’s practically nothing left of the black legend that could be true on any such objective basis. This may make for a less titillating story, but facts are stubborn things, and the truth is the truth.

But this book is so much more than a history of these people, for it also a history of Italy in the late 15^th through early 16^th Centuries: the whole constellation of ducal Milan, serene Venice, artistic/mercantile Florence, royal Naples, Papal Rome and the complex and unwieldy Papal States, along with all the other smaller bit players, plus rising powers in the greater distance like Spain, France and the Grand Turk. With that said, Meyer’s greatest concern is Papal, especially focusing on the Vatican’s efforts to forge a coherent regional power out of what had always been a hodgepodge of independent states wherein no vassals had been living up to any of their responsibilities and feuds and vendettas had been very much the order of the day for half-a-century, give-or-take. By the end of this book I found that I had been just as entertained and informed by the real-life exploits and doings of the Borgia’s than by all of the scandalous made-up stuff, and really, what more can you ask of a book than to blow away the dust of myth using the winds of truth? (man, that was deep).