César, el príncipe del renacimiento - Ep.5 (Los Borgia. Sed de poder)

César, más conocido como Duque Valentino, es otro de los personajes de la familia Borgia que más dio hablar durante su vida, aunque como veremos lo perdió absolutamente todo. Príncipe, cardenal y guerrero, es el hijo más recordado de Rodrigo Borgia, entre otras razones por su ambición y talento militar. César, llamado duque Valentino, tenía nula vocación por la carrera eclesiástica a la que su padre le destinó en un primer momento como trampolín hacia otras empresas. Su auténtica pasión era la guerra y, sirviéndose de la fuerza –y del dinero y el poder del Vaticano–, intentó crear un Estado propio en el centro de Italia. Alcanzó la gloria a la sombra de Alejandro VI y con la desaparición de este lo perdió todo, hasta la vida. Escucha la historia completa en el podcast. Déjanos tu comentario en Ivoox o Spotify, o escríbenos a [e-mail] Comparte nuestro podcast en tus redes sociales, puedes realizar una valoración de 5 estrellas en Apple Podcast o Spotify. Texto: Gonzalo Pulido Dirección, locución y producción: Iván Patxi Gómez Gallego Contacto de publicidad en podcast: [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Great reports of very history presents theBorgia Seth of power, cardinal prince and
warrior. He is the most rememberedson of Rodrigo Borgia, among other reasons,

(00:26):
for his ambition and military talent.Caesar named Duke Valentino, had no
vocation for the ecclesiastical career to whichhis father first assigned him as a springboard
to other companies. His true passionwas war and, using the strength and
money and power of the Vatican,he tried to create a state of his

(00:48):
own in central Italy. He reachedglory in the shadow of Alexander VI and
with his disappearance he lost everything tolife. Or chapter five Caesar, the
prince of rebirth, a text byGonzalo Pulido. César Borgia was nothing and

(01:19):
yet, it was a slight analysisof a book about the history of Italy.
It is enough to understand its historicalinsignificance or a mention, and one
can even glimpse the scant transcendence ofthe family clan in the historical sedimentary,
much in spite of its ambitions,as Alejandro VI Rodrigo Borgia only occupies a

(01:42):
couple of lines. Caesar was nothingand yet, more than five hundred years
after the random existence of his family, he is one of the most famous,
mysterious and interesting historical characters, whichis surely due to his abrupt,
ephemeral and fascinating life, personality andmore frequent and recognized values today than we
would admit and to eternity and orcurse that Barnabé Barnés, Nicolás Machiavelli,

(02:08):
Alejandro Dumas, Victor Hugo or FriedrichNietzche gave him Barnabé Barnés, Nicolás Machiavelli,
Alejandro Dumas and Friedrich Nietzche. Whilehis brother, Juan Borgia, served

(02:34):
as captain general of the Pontifical Armiesand Duke of Gandea, Caesar studied theology
and laws at the universities of Perugiaand Pisa, longing for his office and
military life at seventeen years of age. He was consecrated protonotary of the Papacy
and bishop of Pamplona in one thousandfour hundred and ninety- one. Before
he turned twenty. In a thousandfour hundred and ninety- two he was

(02:58):
appointed archbishop of Valencia and a yearlater cardinal thanks to the promotion of his
father to the Papacy. But CaesarBorgia had to set aside his ecclesiastical career
when precisely that older brother, whomhe envied as captain of the papal troops,
was stabbed to death in an alleyin Rome, without the guilty ever
being discovered. On the 15th ofJune of one thousand four hundred and ninety

(03:25):
- seven, John, the eldestson of Rodrigo Borgia and brother of Caesar,
appeared floating in the waters of theTiber with stabbings on his torso and
head, his throat slit and thirtyducats of gold. As in those years,
intrigues, infidelities, poisonings and stabbingswere as much on the order of
the day as betrayals, alliances orwars. Both this episode and many others

(03:51):
in Borgia' s life are notas unusual as the crime account might appear.
In any case, he claims thatthe night before John had abandoned his
guard and his companions, including Caesarhimself, and had come to an appointment
that has not yet been fully clarifiedtoday. No one knows for sure who

(04:15):
the killer was. What is dueto the fact that, on the one
hand, the sentimental run of Johnand in those times of great number of
nobles with married women, were frequentyour love affair, even with Sáncha de
Aragón, the wife of his youngerbrother Jofré, and, on the other
hand, to the fact that therewere not few enemies that the Borgia had

(04:35):
been built in italic lands, partlybecause of their Spanish origin and partly because
of their ambitions and their attempts tosubdue and reunify territories that in those days
were authentic Indians. Even though Franceand Aragon had intervened in the north and
south, respectively multiple imaginary, moreor less rigorous, a shadow appears that

(05:01):
points to several Borgia as the originof the murder of John, either separately
or in different combinations. Caesar himself, his brother Jofré and even Alexander VI,
the father of all motives for crimesize are based on Caesar' s
ambition, Jofré' s revenge orthe incest of several or all with Lucrecia,

(05:25):
the sister and daughter. Beyond theseaccusations, perhaps unfounded and fuelled by
multiple enemies and all kinds of opportunists, crime is most likely due to revenge.

(05:49):
In any case, Caesar renounced theecclesiastical career convinced that this was not
his vocation. For the first timein history, a s s S.
S. S. So Nar renouncedthe cardinalate. He had a greater affinity
for weapons than for purple, eventhough he was a hidden and refined person
like most of the elite youth ofthat time. Therefore, after John'

(06:12):
s death, he took his placeat the head of Alexander VI' s
troops to carry out the mandated papalmissions, which seemed to have no end,
and aspired as their ultimate goal tounify Italy and regain the splendor of
the Roman Empire, using all possiblemeans to secure the absolute power of the

(06:38):
Borgia. Caesar did not spare inusing all kinds of intrigues betrayals and even
murders if someone obstructed his path andhis objectives. Abandoned from the ecclesiastical career,
it became necessary to find a wifefor him. The one chosen,
based mainly on political interests, wasCarlota de Albret, sister of King John

(07:01):
III of Navarre. Unlike this one, Caesar achieved important military successes and showed
great cunning in limiting situations, because, unlike that very impulsive one, Borgia
was cold and had a military talentthat soon proved great. After the death

(07:28):
of his brother, John, Caesarwas destined to calm his father' s
ambition to complete the great dream ofAlexander VI conquer in Italy a temporary kingdom
for his family, after trying firstin Naples. Finally both set their sights
on the very heart of the PapalStates, specifically in the region of Romagna,
which should become an independent Duchy ruledby Caesar himself. To do this,

(07:57):
it was necessary to submit to themany established lords the area that behaved
like small tyrants and took little heedof the pontifical authority. In a thousand
four hundred and ninety- eight,the Borgia allied themselves with the King of
France, Louis XIII, in acomplex geopolitical maneuver that included the annulment of

(08:22):
the first marriage of the French monarch, in a sordid process with scandalous declarations,
physical malformations of the queen, thesexual activity of both witchcraft and a
resolution not as impartial as it shouldas part of the favor the Valentino,
thus called by his duke the Frenchtitle of Duke of Valentinoa was created in

(08:43):
one thousand four hundred and ninety-eight. For him he took part in
the taking of Milan by Louis XIIIIn a thousand four hundred and ninety-
nine, after the fall of theduchy of the strivings, the valentine took
advantage of the opportunity, but itwas not a pure opportunity of conquest,

(09:05):
but rather of reconquest. The Romagna, the center of the military campaigns of
Lord Borgia, was a region thatbelonged to the Church since it was handed
over by Pipino, the brief toPope Stephen II and that had been either
usurped or used in an undisciplined wayby vicars or lords heavily armed and allied

(09:26):
on not few occasions with enemies ofthe Pope, such as Venice, Genoa
or Florence. Italy, at thetime, presented such a fragmented geography that
the Union of the entire Peninsula wasan almost impossible undertaking. In the return
of the victory of Milan, Caesarconquered Imola and Forli Dor, cities belonging

(09:52):
to Catarina Esforza, the sister ofthe Duke of Milan, thanks to his
almost two thousand horsemen and six zeroinfants, and to the powerful French artillery.
In 1, 500, after interruptingthe campaign for a rebellion in Milan,
Pesaro Remini and Faenza conquered. Thefirst two were surrendered without presenting battle

(10:13):
after the respective surrenders of Galeach,Esforza, Lucrecia' s first husband and
the Malatesta, but Faenza, inwhich were the brothers Manfreddy, Astor and
Juan, fought until the end.However, not only did the city fall,
but the Manfredy were taken prisoner anda year later they appeared floating in

(10:35):
the Tiber warning, revenge or cautionor perhaps a mixture of everything. Then
came the seizure of Bologna and theassault on Florence, frustrated by the intervention
of Louis XIII, ally of theFlorentines and Alexander VI himself. But even

(10:56):
if it turned out to be aminor movement for fruitless, fear was generated
in the fragmented Florence peninsular map.It was ambition, not abandoned repair.
Ambition at least even better times.Caesar Borgia continued with the task of expelling

(11:16):
all vicars from the Papal States tofortify them and regain power. Shortly afterwards
he conquered the important education of Urbino, even if it was not necessary.
As on many other occasions, theconfrontation was due, among other issues,
to deception. While Leonardo da Vinci, hired by Caesar, worked for the

(11:48):
reconstruction and fortification of the recovered citiessuch as Rimini, Cesena, Faenza and
Imola, some of his captains also, gentlemen, conjured themselves against him.
There were several reasons, some complexand contradictory, but perhaps the most important
was the fear of the Duke ofValentinoa' s ambition. It is not

(12:16):
well known how, but the truthis that Caesar knew of this conspiracy,
that in fact there were two,because the first was forgiven, so when
he went to the trap lying inSinigaglia, all had fallen into a multiple
ambush from which Caesar Borgia emerged victoriousonly for having acted before his adversaries his
men arrested the captains in the palace, while they had left their troops outside

(12:39):
the city. On the same day, thirty- one December of one thousand
and five hundred two, a summarytrial was held that concluded with the execution
of or freed all Fermo and VitellochoVitelli and the sending to Rome of the
Orsini brothers, Paul and Francis,who were executed long after, after not

(13:01):
a few avatars as a result ofthe failed spell, the Orsini and Colona
families, enemies but allied against AlexanderVI, lost all their possessions in the
Pontifical States. After the intervention ofLouis XII. It was February of 1,

(13:24):
500 three and the geopolitical board ofthe Italic Peninsula was changing dramatically.
Alexander VI was seventy- two yearsold and in the final line of life
and in a situation of distancing withCaesar, for he aspired to control for
conquered asylum, while the Pope wantedthe territories, even if they were Caesar

(13:46):
' s in life, to passto the Church after his death. Louis
XIII, on the other hand,had begun to turn to the rest of
the States what remained paternal for theprotection he offered to the main instigator of
the conjuring of Sinigaglia, Pandolfo Petrucci, the tyrant of Siena, and Alexander

(14:07):
VI had begun to flirt with Venetiansand Spaniards. They all played several decks
in a complex alliance game without knowingwhat the result of the next hand would
be, and this could not beworse for us Borgia, for Alexander VI

(14:33):
died on the eighteenth of August of1, 500 three. Her death saw
a rumor of her being attributed topoison, but it could also have been
due to poisoning. The high temperatures, along with the lack of hygiene of
the time, made it frequent ormuch more likely to an infectious disease the
tertian or malaria that ravaged Rome duringthat torrido summer and that had him in

(14:58):
bed for a week with violent attacksof fever. Anyway, it was a
fatal blow. Because Rodrigo Borgia diedbefore the consolidation of his son' s
power in a geopolitical scenario of instabilityand no less important because of the affection

(15:18):
of Caesar himself as the rest ofthe diners participants of poisoning, contagion or
poisoning, Although he was replenished byhis youth and physical strength, he was
out of combat for a time.Taking advantage of that moment of weakness,

(15:39):
all those who had lost their possessionsor fallen into misfortune saw the opportunity to
recover what was lost or to takerevenge or both, from the colonna Orsinio
isabel A, the Montefeltro, Varanoor Baglione. Thus, while, as
was already tradition, Rome was plundered, the stolen papal treasure and the Allied

(16:02):
families of the fallen pope, attackedin just a few days with Caesar lying
in bed, the Borgia lost almosteverything they had fought for for for years.
Exhausted and disoriented, Caesar asked LouisXIII for help and he supported him

(16:25):
in exchange for his candidate' selection as pope, which changed substantially on
stage. And although Caesar agreed notonce but twice the aid did not occur,
which surely buried his last chance.First he was named Pius III,
who would die within a few days, and then Julius II, Julian of

(16:47):
the Rober, whom Caesar backed inexchange for the promise to maintain command of
the papal forces and their possessions inRome. But Julius II was untrustworthy.
In the past it had already risenagainst Alexander C and both had so many
betrayals and accounts pending between themselves andwith others that sustaining the agreement would have

(17:07):
been impossible. Julius soon stripped himof the Romagna and ordered his arrest Caesar
managed to flee to Naples, wherehe was arrested and sent to Spain by
the great captain, who had nointention of offending the new Pope, protecting

(17:30):
the duke the betrayals and the outstandingaccounts pursued him to the point of being
imprisoned by order of Ferdinand the Catholic, among other issues, by the alliances
of the Borgia. With Louis XIIIhe escaped in 1, 500 six Medina
del Campo with great audacity and notlittle fortune, thanks in part to the

(17:51):
lack of control in Castile after thedeath of Philip the Beautiful and the raving
of Juana, and joined his brother- in- law, Juan de Albret,
who was then in the middle ofa civil war with the BE to
Monteses and Gramonteses. His brother-in- law welcomed him with joy,
for he needed a military commander ofhis height to resolve the complex situation.

(18:11):
It was the last chance to bereborn, but it became the last episode
of his life. Caesar would dieat the site of Viana in March of
1, 500 seven. Certainly,it was all like many and like few
of his contemporaries, and yet Caesarwas nothing. Thank you very much for

(18:41):
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