Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild from Aaronminkie. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: While touring through Milan in eighteen sixteen, Lord Byron visited
Speaker 1: the museum collection of the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana. Byron found himself
Speaker 1: entranced by one particular exhibit, handwritten letters from over four
Speaker 1: hundred years earlier between poet and his lover, Lucrezia Borgia.
Speaker 1: The letters were displayed under glass, along with a luck
Speaker 1: of Lucrezia's famous blonde hair that she had cut off,
Speaker 1: in this case to send her paramour, along with one
Speaker 1: of the letters. Lord Byron being Lord Byron, he couldn't
Speaker 1: resist the urge to look around, be sure no one
Speaker 1: was watching, and then take some of the hair for himself.
Speaker 1: Byron could never resist a woman or the glamor of fame,
Speaker 1: and Lucrezia Borgia was famous in her lifetime. She was
Speaker 1: a central figure in the Italian social scene, the illegitimate
Speaker 1: daughter of a man who would then go on to
Speaker 1: become the Pope, she was a member of one of
Speaker 1: the era's most powerful families, the Borges. Even while she
Speaker 1: was alive, rumors about Lucrezia spread wildly, but after her
Speaker 1: death especially, she became a larger than life figure, a
Speaker 1: Lady Macbeth, villainous, a conniving poisoner, a usurper, a man eater. Famously,
Speaker 1: Lucrezia Borgia was said to have owned a ring where
Speaker 1: instead of a stone, there was a hollow chamber that
Speaker 1: she could fill with powdered poison in order to surreptitiously
Speaker 1: murder her enemies. For the record, there's no evidence that
Speaker 1: that actually existed. Though political murders were happening all around her,
Speaker 1: several at the behest of her family, there's no actual
Speaker 1: evidence that Lucrezia was involved in any of them at all.
Speaker 1: It's rare for me in an episode of Noble Blood
Speaker 1: to come to an understanding that a figure or any
Speaker 1: historical event is less interesting than most people understand it
Speaker 1: to be. But in Lucrezia Borgia's case it might be true.
Speaker 1: The rumors and speculation around her in the centuries since
Speaker 1: her death have loomed so large that in researching her life,
Speaker 1: I felt not unlike a Renaissance artist chipping away at
Speaker 1: a block of marble. You begin with a block of stone,
Speaker 1: A story high and then carve away piece by piece
Speaker 1: until what's left a woman just human sized? So was
Speaker 1: she a fen fatale or maybe she was just a
Speaker 1: blonde bimbo manipulated by the more powerful men in her life,
Speaker 1: her father and her brother. What if the answer is neither,
Speaker 1: what then what's left? There's a painting that I think
Speaker 1: embodies the strange marriage between the perception and the reality
Speaker 1: of Lucrezia Borgia. It's called Lucrezia Borgia reigns in the
Speaker 1: Vatican in the absence of Pope Alexander the sixth It
Speaker 1: was painted around by Frank Cadogan Cowper and it currently
Speaker 1: hangs in the Tape in London. The painting is of
Speaker 1: a Vatican throne room, painted almost entirely in reds. The
Speaker 1: cardinals surrounding the papal throne look more like flames, and
Speaker 1: in the center of the canvas, where the Pope should
Speaker 1: be sitting, is instead his daughter. The at t a Borgia,
Speaker 1: a vision in orange yellow, almost glowing golden. The artist's
Speaker 1: rendition is actually based on a true event in which
Speaker 1: Lucrezia scandalized the Vatican by taking her father's place in
Speaker 1: his seat, but the artist imagined something one step further.
Speaker 1: The artist painted two cardinals pulling away at either side
Speaker 1: of Lucrezia's dress to allow a friar to kiss her feet.
Speaker 1: That almost certainly never happened, But in the painting it is,
Speaker 1: at least to my eyes, unambiguously sexual symbolism. Whatever was
Speaker 1: true or false in terms of rumors about Lucrezia's life,
Speaker 1: that symbolic implication at least was true. Here was a
Speaker 1: woman more sexual than sixteenth century Italy wanted her to
Speaker 1: be more powerful, and they wanted her to be and
Speaker 1: glowing or not, nobody could take their eyes off of her.
Speaker 1: I'm Danis Schwartz, and this is noble blood. In the
Speaker 1: fifteenth century, the notion of a pope having children was
Speaker 1: considered far less outrageous than it might sound today. Though
Speaker 1: Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia had gone through the motions briefly pretending
Speaker 1: that the four children that he had with his married
Speaker 1: mistress were his nephews and niece. Eventually he lifted his
Speaker 1: hands and admitted that he had four children, Chessire, Giovanni, Lucrezia,
Speaker 1: and Geoffrey. Their mother, Venoza, was a notoriously famous beauty
Speaker 1: of Rome, and though she was, as previously mentioned, married,
Speaker 1: she was also the favorite of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia. At
Speaker 1: this point, the Borges had limited but significant power. The
Speaker 1: borgia Is already had a pope in their family, trade
Speaker 1: Pope Callixtus the Third, but they were still considered outsiders
Speaker 1: in Italian society. For one, they weren't really Italian. The
Speaker 1: Borges were actually Catalan, and they had lived in the
Speaker 1: formerly Moorish currently Spanish kingdom of Valencia, as they did
Speaker 1: with most other Catalans. Italians thought of the Borgia's as
Speaker 1: tight fisted and ruthless. They referred to them as Morani
Speaker 1: or secret Jews, and so even as the Borgias became
Speaker 1: more powerful in Italy, they remained a tight knit family
Speaker 1: above all else. They spoke Catalan amongst themselves, and they
Speaker 1: had their own internal loyalties. They were all raised believing
Speaker 1: in in us versus them mentality. If you've watched or
Speaker 1: read Game of Thrones, certain parallels will reveal themselves soon enough,
Speaker 1: and I suspect that George R. Martin might have been
Speaker 1: a little bit inspired by the Borgia family, especially when
Speaker 1: building the personalities of the Landisters. When Lucrezia Borgia was twelve,
Speaker 1: her father was elected Pope Alexander the sixth. There were
Speaker 1: rumors even then that he had bought the seat with bribery,
Speaker 1: or that it was nepotism because his uncle had been
Speaker 1: pope already, and both of those things may have been factors,
Speaker 1: but probably a more important factor is that Borgia was
Speaker 1: seen as a centrist candidate. The other powerful families vying
Speaker 1: for pope had their own rivalries and loyalties. Bourgea wasn't
Speaker 1: to pro France or to Milanaise. The Borgia's just mostly
Speaker 1: looked out for the Borgia's. And a brief note from
Speaker 1: this point in the story, I'll be referring to Lucrezia's
Speaker 1: father by his papal name Alexander for clarity. Even though
Speaker 1: he was born Rodrigo, at this point in history, there
Speaker 1: was very little stigma attached to the fact that Alexander's
Speaker 1: four children were bastards, just as there was really no
Speaker 1: stigma attached to the fact that Alexander was about to
Speaker 1: use his new found powers as pope to advance his
Speaker 1: family's position. It's what all the popes did in this case.
Speaker 1: Advancing his family meant advantageous marriages. By the time she
Speaker 1: was twelve, Lucrezia had already been engaged three times. It
Speaker 1: wasn't hard to find her matches even from a young age.
Speaker 1: She had golden hair and bright white teeth. She was
Speaker 1: charming and well educated. But then her father was elected
Speaker 1: pope and her prospects got a whole lot better. In
Speaker 1: fourte three, when Lucrezia was just thirteen years old, she
Speaker 1: was married to a man nearly fifteen years her senior,
Speaker 1: a man named Giovanni Sparza of the powerful Sparza family.
Speaker 1: Giovanni was the nephew of the Duke of Milan, and
Speaker 1: even though Lucrezia and her new husband remained in Rome,
Speaker 1: it was important for the Boorges to have allies in
Speaker 1: northern Italy. But as it turned out, that alliance was
Speaker 1: more temporarily important. Lucrezia and Giovanni had been married only
Speaker 1: a year when the Sparzas began to seem like a liability.
Speaker 1: A lot of complicated political maneuvering is happening behind the
Speaker 1: scenes in Italy at this moment, But to make a
Speaker 1: long story short, the Duke of Milan allied with the
Speaker 1: King of France against the Pope still in Rome, Giovanni
Speaker 1: was stranded metaphorically in the belly of the beast, not
Speaker 1: quite sure if she was supposed to ally himself with
Speaker 1: his uncle but of Milan or with his wife's powerful family.
Speaker 1: But for the Borges, their choice of loyalty was entirely clear.
Speaker 1: Lucrezia's older brother, Chessire, met with her one afternoon and
Speaker 1: calmly explained to her that her husband would need to
Speaker 1: be killed so that she could be remarried to someone
Speaker 1: who could actually help them politically. Lucrezia panicked. She liked
Speaker 1: her husband, they were genuinely fond of each other, and
Speaker 1: so she ran home that afternoon and warned him. Giovanni
Speaker 1: fled to Milan disguised as a beggar. We can just
Speaker 1: imagine Pope Alexander putting his head in his hand and sighing,
Speaker 1: saying something like, darn, it's going to be so much
Speaker 1: harder for you to get out of that marriage now, Lucrezia. Now,
Speaker 1: the Borges only had one option to get Lucrezia out
Speaker 1: of that marriage. That option was annulling it. With them
Speaker 1: being Catholic and their father being the Pope meant the
Speaker 1: only way to do that was to claim that the
Speaker 1: marriage had never been consummated. Well, that was a bit
Speaker 1: of a laugh. There was absolutely no reason to believe
Speaker 1: that that was true, and all of Rome knew it. No,
Speaker 1: it's true, Chess, he said, It's Giovanni's fault. He is impotent.
Speaker 1: Ignore the fact that he had already been married once
Speaker 1: and his first wife died in childbirth. He never consummated
Speaker 1: the marriage with my sister because he's impotent. Trust me.
Speaker 1: The Borges were going to force Giovanni Sparza to sign
Speaker 1: a statement to that effect, which he eventually did, but
Speaker 1: not without lashing out in his own way, saying that
Speaker 1: maybe the Boorges only wanted Lucrezia single so that they
Speaker 1: could have her for themselves. Alexander, her father, and Ssary.
Speaker 1: The Borges were notoriously close, weren't they. This is about
Speaker 1: when the rumors of incest began, but those rumors would
Speaker 1: continue on for the rest of Lucrezia's life. While the
Speaker 1: annulment was working itself out, Lucrezia needed to get out
Speaker 1: of the picture, just to be put aside so that
Speaker 1: no one in Rome would think about her for a
Speaker 1: little while, and you know, maybe just in case she
Speaker 1: had gotten pregnant from her first husband, to make sure
Speaker 1: that no one could see it lest they believed that
Speaker 1: the marriage had been consummated, and so Lucrezia was sent
Speaker 1: to a nunnery outside the city. But two unfortunate incidents
Speaker 1: occurred in the months after lucrezia separation from her first
Speaker 1: husband that would begin the tarnish on her reputation. First,
Speaker 1: on Valentine's Day fourteen ninety eight, a young Spaniard named
Speaker 1: Pedro called her own, known colloquially as Perotto, who worked
Speaker 1: in the Pope's chamber, was found dead in the Tiber
Speaker 1: River along with one of Lucrezia's ladies. Speculation ran rampant
Speaker 1: that Lucrezia had been having an affair with Piroto and
Speaker 1: that her brother Chessia had had him killed in order
Speaker 1: to protect his sister's reputation. Although before you think I'm
Speaker 1: accusing Chessire of brotherly kindness, protecting Lucrezia's reputation really just
Speaker 1: meant protecting her marriage prospects. And then the second incident,
Speaker 1: a Borgia baby was born, and no one seemed to
Speaker 1: be sure whose it was. The baby was initially known
Speaker 1: as the Infant Romanus or the Infant of Rome, but
Speaker 1: he would later be known as Giovanni. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of Giovanni's in this story. The most likely explanation
Speaker 1: for the baby is that he was Pope Alexander's child,
Speaker 1: and the Pope even admitted so much in a papal
Speaker 1: bull later in his life. But early on, right after
Speaker 1: the baby appeared, they said it was chess Eire's child
Speaker 1: out of wedlock before he got married. But Lucrezia had
Speaker 1: been sent away and her marriage being unconsummated was essential
Speaker 1: to her family's political dealings. What if people thought the
Speaker 1: baby was hers and it was result of I don't know,
Speaker 1: incest with her father, or and here you can cue
Speaker 1: the Game of Thrones theme song, what if it was
Speaker 1: a result of incest with her brother? Again, there was
Speaker 1: no evidence to support this, and most historians agree. Now
Speaker 1: the child was almost certainly Pope Alexander's, possibly Chanceres, but
Speaker 1: really probably not Lucrezia's. Still, the Boers has had power,
Speaker 1: and other families of Italy wanted that power. Rumors were
Speaker 1: a weapon. When Lucrezia turned eighteen, it was time for
Speaker 1: her to get married. Again and again, death, tragedy and
Speaker 1: rumors would follow behind her. This time, Pope Alexander wanted
Speaker 1: to secure the Borgia position with the royal family of
Speaker 1: the Kingdom of Naples. Naples was in a precarious position
Speaker 1: under the threat of King Charles the eighth of France,
Speaker 1: who claimed the throne for himself through a certain inherited lineage.
Speaker 1: Not to get too deep into the weeds of these politics,
Speaker 1: but the Pope's youngest son, Geoffrey, had already married the
Speaker 1: daughter of the King of Naples, a girl named Sancha,
Speaker 1: although seeing her name spelled out s A n c
Speaker 1: I A, you might be forgiven for mispronouncing it Sansa.
Speaker 1: Geoffrey and Santa is another fun little layer of Game
Speaker 1: of Thrones intrigue into the mix. But back to Lucrezia.
Speaker 1: Lucrezia was going to get married to the King of
Speaker 1: naples illegitimate son, Alfonso, Duke of Bichellier, the half brother
Speaker 1: of Sancha, but that marriage wasn't the Pope's end game.
Speaker 1: The thing was their dad, Alfonso and Sancha's dad wasn't
Speaker 1: the king anymore. He had died and their uncle became
Speaker 1: the king and the new king had a daughter, Carlotta,
Speaker 1: that the Pope really wanted for his eldest son, chess Are,
Speaker 1: so as sort of a consolation prize, he was marrying
Speaker 1: Lucrezia to the illegitimate but still titled and important Duke
Speaker 1: of Bichellier, hoping it would be a foothold for Carlotta
Speaker 1: to get with chess Are. That marriage for chess Are
Speaker 1: never worked out, although jess a A did end up
Speaker 1: having an affair with Sancha, his younger brother's wife. In
Speaker 1: her defense, relatively, she was sixteen when she was married
Speaker 1: to a twelve year old Geoffrey, but what can I say?
Speaker 1: The Borgias were very scandalous and very messy. As for
Speaker 1: Lucrezia and husband number two, it seemed like she had
Speaker 1: finally struck the jackpot, at least in terms of her
Speaker 1: own personal happiness. Another quick aside, there is just an
Speaker 1: influx of Alphonso's in this story, and so for clarity,
Speaker 1: husband number two will be referred to by his title Bachelier.
Speaker 1: Lucrezia and Bichellier were only a year apart in age,
Speaker 1: and he was known to be tall and graceful, athletic
Speaker 1: and handsome. Their wedding was private, but we know details
Speaker 1: from Sanche's writing. We know that Lucrezia wore addressed with
Speaker 1: jewel studded sleeves and a French style robe with black
Speaker 1: thread and a red velvet trim. Pearls encircled her belt
Speaker 1: and her neck, and her cap was embroidered with glittering gems.
Speaker 1: She wore a gold circlet crown in her golden blonde hair.
Speaker 1: The groom were a broach that his new bride had
Speaker 1: given him. The festivities were as magnificent as he might
Speaker 1: expect from a Borgia party. After the ceremony, there was
Speaker 1: another raucous after party, and marvelous tableaus were set up
Speaker 1: to amuse the guests throughout the Borgia apartments. In one
Speaker 1: tableau there was an intricate fountain. Another was a room
Speaker 1: all made up to look like the woods, and members
Speaker 1: of the Borgia family dressed up as wild animals. Chessire
Speaker 1: dressed as a unicorn, his younger, cockolded little brother was
Speaker 1: given a sea goose costume. For a short while, the
Speaker 1: Cretia and her husband were living a life together, she
Speaker 1: lost a pregnancy, but eventually she became pregnant again. The
Speaker 1: two lived together in relative happiness in Rome, but politics
Speaker 1: were still happening in the world all around them. This
Speaker 1: is going to be a vast oversimplification, but I hope
Speaker 1: it at least serves as a decent overview. Naples was
Speaker 1: in a precarious position. It was under threat by King
Speaker 1: Charles the Eighth of France, who claimed the throne of
Speaker 1: Naples for himself through a sort of convoluted lineage. But
Speaker 1: then King Charles the Eighth died in France without a director,
Speaker 1: which meant that his second cousin, once removed, Louis the
Speaker 1: twelfth inherited France, and he also inherited Charles's claim to
Speaker 1: the throne of Naples. But there was something else. Louis
Speaker 1: the Twelfth wanted Brittany. Brittany wasn't part of France at
Speaker 1: the time, and the former king only had it because
Speaker 1: he had been married to the Duchess of Brittany named Anne. Well,
Speaker 1: Great Louis the twelfth would marry Anne of Brittany too.
Speaker 1: The only problem was Louis was already married. There's a
Speaker 1: quick answer to that. You just need the pope to
Speaker 1: take care of it. An alliance was born. Pope Alexander
Speaker 1: annulled louis marriage so he could marry the Duchess of Brittany,
Speaker 1: and in exchange, Louis gave the Pope's son chits Or,
Speaker 1: a duchy military assistant, and a bride, a Princess of Navarre.
Speaker 1: All of this is to say, through a convoluted series
Speaker 1: of events, the Boorges became allied with France, and they
Speaker 1: supported the French claim to Naples and not the claim
Speaker 1: of the Italian royal family of Naples. The family of
Speaker 1: Lucrezia's husband, Michelier, sensed that the winds were changing, and
Speaker 1: he fled Rome when his wife was six months pregnant.
Speaker 1: The Pope was furious and sent out men to find him.
Speaker 1: They couldn't, And yet, even though he was home free,
Speaker 1: Chellier returned to Rome for the birth of his child
Speaker 1: at his wife's behest. The way it looked later, it
Speaker 1: looked likely Crezzia alured him back into a trap. As
Speaker 1: the sun set on July dred Butchellier was strolling up
Speaker 1: the steps of St. Peter's Basilica when before he reached
Speaker 1: the threshold, he was accosted by a group of assassins.
Speaker 1: The assassins stabbed him in the head, in the right arm,
Speaker 1: and in the leg. While the Chellier bled on the stairs,
Speaker 1: the assassins tried to snatch him up and carry him away,
Speaker 1: but then guards came out and the assassins fled. There
Speaker 1: wasn't much time to save his life, or any time
Speaker 1: at all. He needed to get to safety, and so
Speaker 1: he was brought inside the Borgia Tower, where his sister
Speaker 1: Sancha and his wife Lucrezia wept over his body while
Speaker 1: he slept. Lucrezia knew that her brother was behind it,
Speaker 1: but there was nothing she could do about that. All
Speaker 1: she could do in the meantime was prepare her husband's
Speaker 1: food just to be sure it wasn't poisoned, and send
Speaker 1: for her husband's own doctors from Naples to take care
Speaker 1: of him. And for a few weeks it looked like
Speaker 1: he was getting better. Baschellier was going to survive his wounds.
Speaker 1: To sorry ever, acting innocent, came one morning to visit
Speaker 1: his brother in law. He leaned in close to give
Speaker 1: Bachelier a kiss on the cheek. What didn't happen at
Speaker 1: lunch can still happen at dinner, he whispered. A month later,
Speaker 1: Bachellier was strangled in his bed. The assassins were never caught.
Speaker 1: Lucrezia was heartbroken. She went into deep mourning, signing letters
Speaker 1: to her family as Latin filicima, the extremely unhappy one.
Speaker 1: She was only twenty years old and she had already
Speaker 1: had two husbands. Maybe she was cursed like everyone said,
Speaker 1: but her family wouldn't let her mourn for long. In
Speaker 1: fifteen o two, she was married yet again to another Alfonso,
Speaker 1: Alfonso d'Este, who had later become the Duke of Ferrara. Alfonso,
Speaker 1: for his part, was, and I'll say maybe justifiably hesitant
Speaker 1: to marry into this incredibly conniving, bloodthirsty family. It objectively
Speaker 1: had not worked out for either of his predecessors. The
Speaker 1: Duke sent a group of ambassadors to Rome to scope
Speaker 1: Lucrezia out, and the report came back spotless. One of
Speaker 1: his ambassadors wrote of Lucrezia quote, she is a wise lady,
Speaker 1: and it is not only my opinion, but that of
Speaker 1: the whole company. And so Alfonso agreed to the marriage.
Speaker 1: It turns out he had a lot in common with Lucrezia.
Speaker 1: He was only twenty four and a widower himself. The
Speaker 1: pair were married and for the first time in Lucrezia's life,
Speaker 1: she lived away from Rome and away from the direct
Speaker 1: influence of her powerful father and brother. As the Duchess
Speaker 1: of Ferrara, Lucrezia Sword, she was accomplished and widely praised
Speaker 1: for her beauty and leadership. This would be the longest
Speaker 1: marriage of her life, lasting seventeen years, though neither party
Speaker 1: was faithful. Lucrezia, in classic Boorgia fashion, had an affair
Speaker 1: with her husband's brother in law, the husband of her
Speaker 1: husband's sister, and of course she also had an affair
Speaker 1: with the much older poet whose love letters to her
Speaker 1: Lord Byron would one day call the prettiest love letters
Speaker 1: in the world. But there was one dark spot to
Speaker 1: her life in Ferrara. She was never allowed to see
Speaker 1: her son, Rodrigo again, her firstborn that she had with
Speaker 1: her second husband. The idea coming into her third marriage
Speaker 1: was that she still had to sort of ostensibly present
Speaker 1: herself as if she was a virgin, even though by
Speaker 1: that point everyone knew the jig was up. Throughout Rodrigo's
Speaker 1: entire young life, she begged to see him. She would
Speaker 1: send him gifts and letters. She sent him a tutor
Speaker 1: from university in Ferrara. She didn't get to see him
Speaker 1: until he was twelve years old. After he already died,
Speaker 1: Lucrezia was able to travel to where he had been living,
Speaker 1: where she stayed for a month in mourning. Lucrezia's own
Speaker 1: end would be far less dramatic than her life. She
Speaker 1: outlived her oldest son, her father, and her older brother Chesare,
Speaker 1: and over the course of her multiple marriages she would
Speaker 1: have eight known children, at least one stillborn, and several miscarriages.
Speaker 1: It would be during the birth of what might have
Speaker 1: been her ninth child, Isabella, that Lucrezia, then thirty nine,
Speaker 1: would finally fall. It was the burden of all women,
Speaker 1: the risk of childbirth, that looming specter. Her father, Pope Alexander,
Speaker 1: died in fifteen o three, and with his death came
Speaker 1: the fall in power for the whole Bourgah clan. Lucrezia's
Speaker 1: brother Cesare had been forced to flee Italy, and he
Speaker 1: attempted to capture Navarre. In a military battle in fifteen
Speaker 1: o seven. He was chasing an enemy group of knights,
Speaker 1: only to be ambushed an attacked, killed by a spear.
Speaker 1: The enemy men stripped him of all of his fine
Speaker 1: clothing and valuables and left him alone with just a
Speaker 1: single red tile covering his genitals and the leather mask
Speaker 1: that he wore later in life to cover the half
Speaker 1: of his face that had become grossly disfigured thanks to Syphilers.
Speaker 1: With the deaths of Chesire and Pope Alexander came the
Speaker 1: death of Borgia's central power and protection. The rumors and
Speaker 1: stories about Lucrezia had always been there, but now more
Speaker 1: quickly came the slander and accusations. Some of the stories
Speaker 1: were probably warranted. The Borgia's as a whole were murderous
Speaker 1: and promiscuous, but Lucrezia would always be cast as the
Speaker 1: fun fatale, the murderous black widow. It's an archetype, so compelling,
Speaker 1: so romantic, but sometimes it's hard to find the woman underneath.
Speaker 1: That's the story of Lucrezia Borgia. But stick around after
Speaker 1: a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more
Speaker 1: about the overall legacy of the Borgias. Lucrezia has been
Speaker 1: immortalized in books and plays and operas hundreds of times,
Speaker 1: but her brother Tessare has an even more impressive literary legacy.
Speaker 1: Tessire had been ruthless in his pursuit of power, using
Speaker 1: his father's papal armies and his own mercenaries to expand
Speaker 1: his land and his family's influence. Chess Are was so
Speaker 1: notable that he caught the interest of the political theorist
Speaker 1: Niccolo Macchiavelli. It was Chessire Borgia who inspired what would
Speaker 1: become Machiavelli's most famous work. Some say that Machiavelli wrote
Speaker 1: it ironically as a tongue in cheek critique of power.
Speaker 1: Plenty of people take it completely earnestly, but Machiavelli had
Speaker 1: watched Chessire Borgia operate, and he would use that as
Speaker 1: his playbook, his template when he sat down to write
Speaker 1: his treatise, The Prince. Noble Blood is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.
Speaker 1: The show was written and hosted by Dani Schwartz and
Speaker 1: produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young.
Speaker 1: Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales,
Speaker 1: and you can learn more about the show over at
Speaker 1: Noble Blood tails dot com. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M M