La leyenda negra - Ep.7 (Los Borgia. Sed de poder)

Los Borgia se forjaron su propia leyenda negra, y desde luego se la ganaron a conciencia. Sin duda, los Borgia han sido una de las dinastías más odiadas de la historia. No hay escándalo que no se les haya atribuido: orgías, incesto, hijos ilegítimos, nepotismo, sobornos, envenenamientos, etc. Aunque no fueron personas de conducta irreprochable, muchos de los rumores que aún circulan sobre ellos son exageraciones o simples invenciones, según los historiadores contemporáneos. La leyenda negra, que se consolidó cuando Alejandro VI murió, fue la venganza de unos enemigos que en vida de los papas Borgia no consiguieron derrocarlos. El nepotismo de Calixto III puso los cimientos de muchas enemistades y la vida inmoral y el exceso de Alejandro VI dieron la mejor excusa a sus enemigos para fabular todo tipo de acusaciones y mentiras. No obstante, las últimas investigaciones históricas coinciden en que, si bien los Borgia romanos no fueron unos santos, el mundo les debe una reivindicación más allá de los mitos y las leyendas truculentas que les rodearon. 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: Covadonga Álvarez 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.The Borgia set of power. Undoubtedly,
the Borgia have been one of themost hated dynasties in history. There is

(00:26):
no scandal that they have not beenattributed Orgy without basket illegitimate children, nepotisms
or banes poisonings, etcetera. Althoughthey were not people of irreproachable conduct.
Many of the rumors still circulating aboutthem are exaggerations or mere inventions. According
to contemporary historians. The black legendthat was consolidated when Alexander VI died was

(00:49):
the revenge of enemies who, inthe life of the Borgia popes, failed
to overthrow them. Or chapter seven. The black legend, a text by
CovadongaÁlvarez. Calixto III' snepotism laid the foundations of many enmity and

(01:23):
the immoral life and excess of AlexanderVI saw the best excuse for their enemies
to fabricate all kinds of accusations andlies. However, the latest historical investigations
agree that, although the Roman Borgiaswere not saints, the world owes them
a claim. Beyond the myths andtruculent legends that surrounded them. The two

(01:51):
Borgia popes were accused of nepotism,but 18 other popes shared charges with their
relatives. The record tempts the fourthsixth CS that appointed twenty- five relatives
among bishops, archbishops and cardinals.Moreover, without being an excuse, Calixto
III' s nepotism could have beendue to a desire to surround himself with

(02:13):
people of trust, for he hadneither the character nor the habits of the
other family members that would succeed him. He was an austere religious man and
perhaps his family. His main weaknessfilled the Roman curia with Valencian and Catalan
Aragonese because rightly, he did nottrust the Italians who looked suspiciously at the

(02:34):
foreign pope. His nephew, Alejandro, is reproached for being abused of luxury
and violence, forgetting that his successors, Julio II and León X, did
not lag behind. Nor was hethe first pontiff who violated celibacy and held

(02:54):
his children or grandchildren high. Innocence. Octavo had a granddaughter who ended up
being the bridesmaid of Lucrecia Borgia.Surely Rodrigo Borgia did not act in a
very different way to how his predecessorsand his successors did, But it is
true that in the course of hispapacy there were several mysterious episodes that caused

(03:14):
the scandal among his contemporaries, amongthem the appearance of the corpse of the
Duke of Gandía in the Tiber andthe sudden death of the second husband of
Lucrecia, Borgia, Alfonso of Aragon, facts that his enemies took advantage of

(03:35):
to spread Calumnias. The pope diedand after Caesar' s defeat in his
attempt to found a new state inRomagna, many of his rumors were amplified
to constitute a true black legend aroundthe lineage of the Borgia. Julio Segundo
will have no mercy on the familyor on the memory of Alexander VI,
who will be stained forever. However, it will advantage its rival the luxury

(03:59):
and ostentation will continue largely with itspolicy and will endorse Alexander' s strategy
of turning the Papal States into amilitary power. This is where historical injustice
is most clearly seen with Alexander VIJuly II. Juliano de la Robere was

(04:26):
a cruel and warrior Pope who scandalizedLuther when he visited his Libertine Rome in
1, 500 ten and whose exaggeratedexpenses led to the sale of bullies that
would provoke Protestant reformation and the warsof religion that he would bloody in Europe
for two centuries. However, ithas passed into history as the great Patrones

(04:46):
who commissioned the design of the newVatican Basilica, and the original idea was
of Pope Borgia and Michelangelo. TheSistine chapel, and not only being a
cardinal, allowed the luxury of definingAlexander VI as a Marran Catalan and circumcised
was how to call him a Jew. It should be clarified that at the

(05:15):
end of the 15th century Catalan wasused in Italy as an insult linked to
evil and greed. They were hatedfor their military and commercial protagonism during the
expansion of the Crown of Aragon.This hatred, which was so viciously focused
on a family that was not Catalan, but Valencian, was transformed into open
hostility during the reign of Emperor CharlesI of Spain and fifth of Germany,

(05:40):
a fact that created the foundations ofthe black legend that has dragged Spain Ilos
Borgia for centuries. As St Ignatiusof Loyola told St Francis of Borja,
Duke of Gandía, General of theJesuits and great- grandson of Alexander VI.

(06:01):
At least thirty previous potatoes and afew later ones deserved to burn in
hell. This is where historical injusticeis most clearly seen with Alexander VI.
July II, Juliano de la Robrewas a warrior and cruel Pope who scandalized

(06:24):
Luther when he visited his libertine Romein 1, 500 ten and whose exaggerated
expenses led to the sale of bulliesthat would provoke Protestant reform and the wars
of religion that would bleed in Europefor two centuries. Although Rodrigo de Borja
had been in Rome for thirty-six years at the time of his election
and was more Italian than the Italiansthemselves, he was not welcomed by noble

(06:48):
families. This would have been asurmountable obstacle if he had not dedicated his
pontificate to strengthening the Holy See atthe cost of weakening the great families that
had always been in power in Rome, which earned him important enemies. Unlike

(07:10):
other popes, Alexander VI did nothave the support of a rancid Italian lineage,
so he must have founded a clanto be able to treat you to
the rest of great Roman families.On the other hand, when he occupied
the Chair of Peter, the pontificalStates did not go through a good time.
His army was weak and many ofthe feudal lords did not pay their

(07:32):
tributes, so the Holy See ranthe risk that any well- armed country
could impose its influence by force.That is why Alexander VI sought the support
of the powers of the moment.Spain France, Naples and even Turkey,
a traditional opponent of Christianity and,what is more, did not hesitate to

(07:55):
betray some to mess with others.If that suited your plans. In the
end there was no Duke King Man. Oh, sir, I had no
reason to hate him. His ideawas to create a Borgian dynasty in Central
Italy that would unify the ancient principalities, always at war with each other,
but he did not succeed. Continuingwith the issue of bad fame, we

(08:24):
cannot forget that Protestant reform will spreadhatred of the papacy throughout northern Europe a
few years later. Every time theliterature of Protestant Europe wanted to attack the
papacy, the Borgia were the perfecttarget to embody the evil and depravity of
the Church of Rome. It shouldbe acknowledged that the Valencian family was not

(08:46):
exemplary at all, but neither werethe Borgia very different from other Renaissance princes
nor popes, as we have alreadysaid. Although Alfonso de Borja was the
founder of the fortune of this family, the summit of corruption is attributed to

(09:07):
his nephew Rodrigo, who bought thepapacy in a thousand four hundred and ninety
- two. There was even inhis time who accused him of selling his
soul to the devil in exchange forPeter’ s throne and recognized several illegitimate
sons. Borgia' s sex lifewas totally true and known throughout Rome,
but seen from the context of hertime, it was not so scandalous.

(09:30):
Popes and cardinals were expected to havean active sex life. Yet a host
of stories of parties and orgies werecirculating throughout Rome in which they were supposed
to be constantly involved with incest includedbecause this was one of the favorite rumors.

(09:58):
The enemies of the family propagated bulover an incestuous relationship between the Pope
and his daughter, Lucrecia, whowould also have been a lover of his
brother Caesar. Moreover, he wouldhave even killed her husband, Alfonso de
Aragón for Celos. Although there areletters and some documents from the time and
later years that talk about the matter, nothing is historically proven. They are

(10:30):
rumors turned into truths over the years, rumors spread most likely by the family
of Lucrecia' s first husband,also source of the reputation of murderer and
poisoner that grew around her. Thecause was that, in order to annul
Lucrecia' s marriage to Giovanni Esforza, the Borgia accused him of being impotent.

(10:54):
Esforza' s response was not keptwaiting. He launched a first attack,
spreading the rumor that the Pope hadtaken his wife away from him in
order to enjoy it himself, allowinghim to glimpse an alleged incest and,
of course, adulterous. It wasn' t the only thing he was accused

(11:15):
of. Apparently, she was ateacher of poisoning and performed endless orgies inside
St Peter' s Basilica, whileher father was on a journey, who
was a woman of great beauty,but also intelligent and able to stay at
the head of Rome. In hisfather' s absences, he didn'
t help much. Neither did heget married three times. They were political

(11:37):
pacts that liked some and angered others, attacking the latter with the Buddha'
s weapon. The one who gavebirth in a thousand four hundred and ninety
- eight while in a convent wouldalso not help to improve his image,
and less would be done a coupleof strange procedures in which the child was

(11:58):
registered with Caesar as father and laterwith the same pope as parent. Most
likely the father was a young Aragonesein the service of the father, but
Rome gave pabulo to the hypothesis thatthe child was the fruit of incest,
consolidating the lustful image of Rodrigo's daughter. The reality is that Lucrecia

(12:22):
' s intellectual reputation is more thanendorsed by personalities such as the poet Pietro
Bembo, who kept a great respectfor him, and there are numerous documents
that demonstrate his religious devotion, especiallyin the years he lived with the latter
while in Rome. Alexander VI's daughter was dragged by political intrigues around

(12:43):
her family, But when she wentto live in Ferrara, away from her
father and brother, she was ableto discover the true Lucrecia, a beloved
wife, a given mother, agood patron of the arts and even a
pious and generous woman the lies aboutCaesar. Caesar, the black legend accused

(13:15):
him of being behind the death ofhis brother John, but no evidence of
it has ever been found. Inthe opinion of the authors of the book,
an unpublished Alexander VI released at theend of the black legend there is
no reason to imagine a fraticide.There are reasons, however, and many
to think of the most logical,a vengeance of the enemies of the Borgia,

(13:35):
a trap, an ambush. Thetruth is that the death of someone
so important to the family could putat risk everything the Borgia did, so
the murder was most likely ordered bysome political opponent. In addition to the

(13:56):
Orsini and the other declared enemies ofJuan Borgia, including Fernando the Catholic,
the main suspect for a long timewas Cardinal Ascanio' s declared enemy of
the family. He was thoroughly investigatedon account of his public encounters with the
older brother of the Borgia, norcould he rule out the authorship of any

(14:18):
husband who was offended, as themany love adventures of Juan Borgia were known.
Not all of them were intrigues andloving scorns. During the pontificate of
Alexander VI, Pope Borgia encouraged theworship of the Virgin and her mother,

(14:41):
Saint Anne, and incorporated the prayerof the Angelus into daily prayers. Although
not austere, he did realize thathe should support the reform efforts of influential
religious orders such as the Franciscans,the Dominicans, or the Augustinians. Among
other things, he approved the mendicantorder of the Brothers The Minimum, founded

(15:01):
by the Neapolitan San Francisco de Paula. He was also an important patron who
commissioned Michelangelo. His pieta decorated thepapal rooms with frescoes of il pinturicio and
lent its support to the University ofSapiencia, where Copernicus would teach in more

(15:31):
earthly matters. He healed the financesof the church, very deteriorated and those
of the Romans, through a brilliantidea to organize a great event in the
city. The Jubilee of the Year1, 500. It would be an
indisputable success of his papacy, asthe Holy Year attracted hundreds of thousands of
pilgrims to Rome, who were notdiscouraged by the plague epidemic that plagued the

(15:54):
capital, or by the insecurity ofroads or streets. To improve civil security,
Pope Borgia forbade the Romans to carrypoisoned weapons and gave the police the
power to seize them. They allleft good money in a city that saw
its physiognomy change, for to welcomethem, the Pope commissioned important urban reforms,

(16:15):
such as the Lesandrena road. Aswe see beyond family scandals and personal
ambitions, Alexander VI' s activityin the chair of San Pedro was extraordinarily
productive. Palo already mentioned, joinsthat it has promulgated various measures of a

(16:38):
legal nature, such as the creationof a supreme court composed of four great
doctors of jurisprudence and the establishment ofnorms aimed at preventing abuses in the lower
courts. Despite all this, thememory of the Borgias will always be marked
by legends of crimes and corruption.Although reality is you that it is difficult

(17:00):
to distinguish the true from the false. Of what there is no doubt today
is that this black legend responded tospecific interests. If we considered everything that
the primary sources tell us valid withoutsubjecting them to historical analysis and without taking

(17:22):
into account the context in which theywere carried out, we would not speak
of legend. But it must beborne in mind that there were many competing
interests at this time. There weremany power struggles and there were people who
needed to spread a bad image ofPope Borgia and his family. Moreover,
we cannot make the mistake of analyzinghistory with the eyes of today' s

(17:47):
society or of scandalizing ourselves by talkingabout acts of lust, in dogamy or
murder at that time. In recentyears there has been a revisionist trend that
shows another side of history. Authorsand historians including Michel bad Jori, was
the world' s greatest expert inthe Borgia. They have helped to show

(18:07):
us a different image, despite alltheir flaws, demystifying the bulls, rumors
and infamies spread over five hundred years. Thank you very much for listening to

(18:30):
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