Alexander VI
The man who sold salvation also sold his own daughter — twice.
Rodrigo Borgia bought the papacy in 1492 with four mule-loads of silver, then spent the next eleven years proving that absolute power corrupts absolutely — and profitably. As Alexander VI, he turned the Vatican into a family business, appointing his teenage son Cesare as cardinal and his other son Juan as captain-general of the papal armies. When Juan turned up dead in the Tiber with nine stab wounds, Cesare's alibi was suspiciously airtight.
But Alexander's masterpiece was his daughter Lucrezia, whom he weaponized through marriage with the efficiency of a Renaissance arms dealer. First, he married her to Giovanni Sforza for political alliance, then had the marriage annulled when Sforza outlived his usefulness — claiming it was never consummated, despite Lucrezia's visible pregnancy. Her second husband, Alfonso of Aragon, was strangled in the papal apartments after becoming inconvenient. The third marriage, to Alfonso d'Este, finally stuck — partly because Este was too powerful to murder casually.
While Europe's nobility played chess, Alexander played a different game entirely. His 1493 papal bull dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal wasn't diplomacy — it was a business transaction. He literally sold continents he'd never seen to kings who'd never been there, collecting tribute from both sides. The man who claimed to speak for God on earth spent his evenings hosting dinner parties where Roman prostitutes performed for cardinals, then charged admission.
When Alexander finally died in 1503, his body decomposed so rapidly in the Roman heat that his face turned black and his tongue swelled grotesquely. Even in death, he seemed to be making a point about the state of his soul.
Alexander VI fathered at least seven children while Pope, including four with the same mistress, Vannozza Cattanei, whom he set up in a palazzo and visited so regularly that Romans joked about the 'other papal residence.'
Why untold: His political cunning and the global consequences of his papal bulls are overshadowed by centuries of focus on his sexual scandals and family murders.
A Pope Drew a Line and Split the World
A Spanish pope sat down with a map and drew a line across the Atlantic Ocean. Nobody asked Africa what it thought.
How a Fake Dinner Invitation Toppled the Borgias
A forged invitation to a feast that never happened brought down the most powerful family in Renaissance Italy.
A Pope Drew a Line and Split the Globe
A papal document written in 1493 by a clerk who had never seen the Americas split the entire globe between two nations—based on a line no one could actually draw.
A Line on a Map, Given as a Wedding Gift
A marriage ceremony in 1494 divided the undiscovered world between two kingdoms—neither of which had ever seen it.
The Pope Who Split the World in Half
A single papal bull in 1494 sliced the entire planet between two Catholic monarchs—but the Pope forgot about one rather large continent.
— Bradford, Sarah. Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy. Viking, 2004.
— Mallett, Michael. The Borgias: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Dynasty. Bodley Head, 1969.
— Pastor, Ludwig von. History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages. Routledge, 1891.