Cesare Borgia

Cesare Borgia (1476?-1507), Italian soldier, politician, and ecclesiastic, born in Rome, an illegitimate son of Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI. The year after the election of his father to the papacy, Cesare, then barely 18 years old, was made a cardinal. He soon became notorious for his licentious habits and violent temper, and he was suspected of complicity in the assassination of his brother Giovanni, duke of Benevento and of Gandia. In August 1498, Cesare relinquished his cardinalate, and a few months later he was sent to France as a papal legate to convey to King Louis XII an annulment of Louis's first marriage. Louis rewarded Cesare with the duchy of Valentinois in France. In 1499 Cesare married a sister of Jean d'Albret, king of Navarre, and accompanied Louis XII to Italy, where he successfully undertook the conquest of the Romagna Region for the Holy See. Named duke of Romagna by his father in 1501, Cesare further extended his conquests; he seized the principality of Piombino in north-central Italy but failed in an attempt to acquire Bologna and Florence. He then took Camerino and the duchy of Urbino, both in central Italy.

Following the seizure of Urbino, Cesare's enemies joined forces and rebelled to reclaim their conquered territories. Cesare lured the rebel leaders to the castle of Senigallia, on the Adriatic Sea, where he had them executed. Following the death of Alexander VI in 1503, Cesare's enemies resumed the struggle for their possessions and seized his dominions in central Italy. Julius II, an archenemy of the Borgias who was elected pope in 1503, deprived him of the remainder of his holdings and allowed him to depart for Naples, then under Spanish control. Accused of conspiratorial activities in Naples, Cesare was arrested and taken to Spain. He was imprisoned in the castle of Medina del Campo from 1504 to 1506 but finally contrived to escape to Navarre. He joined his brother-in-law, the king of Navarre, in an expedition against Castile and was killed in action at Viana, Navarre.

Like many of his contemporaries, Cesare Borgia was unscrupulous, treacherous, and cruel toward his political rivals. He was the prototype of the cunning political ruler portrayed in The Prince (1532, translated 1640) by the Italian political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli.