Christopher Hibbert's The Borgias And Their Enemies

During the Renaissance period there were many intellectuals and many different rulers. However, in: The Borgias: and Their Enemies, by Christopher Hibbert, the time period resembles one of which most readers are not familiar with. The book is masked with violence, greed, incest, and many forms of sin that is all too common in the modern world. The book itself aims to reveal how corrupted not only society itself once was, but the church as well. There is an apparent parallel between the church and society during this time period, and modern society and as well as the government we live in today. This parallel can be drawn by the reader by looking into two key elements: greed and corruption. Corruption is defined by many as the use of public

When you not only have the ability to controls some ones actions, but have the power to control their actions for the benefit of your own, you can consider yourself a very powerful individual. During the Renaissance era, many aristocratic families had control over intellectuals of the time. Some of them included, Michelangelo, da Vinci, and Machiavelli. However, throughout The Borgias, the narrator makes notes of how Machiavelli sees the Borgia family and gives hints to his liking toward the family. To the reader, Machiavelli seems like a well-adjusted citizen, capable of being reliant and separate to other aristocratic families other than the Borgias. By being, as one would say, loyal to the Borgias, Machiavelli is able to gain a quality insight on the Borgia family. Machiavelli, during the time period, was the well know author of his book, The Prince, and being a close acquaintance of the Borgia family, became an informer to Florence about members of the Borgia family’s actions. During his time in the Papal States, he observed the Borgias “…without excessive exaggeration, these lands were ‘a nursery of all the worst crimes, of outbreaks of rapine and murder, resulting from the wickedness of local lords and not, as these lords maintained, from the disposition of their subjects’.” The reader can only best assume that Machiavelli thought of the Borgias as a disgusted and disgraceful joke of a family. In spite of the repulsiveness of the family, Machiavelli had an idolization for Cesare Borgia. Machiavelli exclaims: “this lord is very proud…and, as a soldier, he is so enterprising that nothing is so great that it does not seem trivial to him.” During this part in the book, Machiavelli has been following Cesare, and keeping tabs on him and then reporting back to Florence. Throughout Cesare’s conquest throughout Italy, Machiavelli accompanies his army, once