I'm almost embarrassed to admit we're watching The Borgias, a Showtime TV series now out on Netflix DVD. Jeremy Irons is one of my favorite actors, and I thought his venerable presence in a "historical drama" might elevate it above the usual trashy level of cable TV. Ha! The Borgias is as lurid and violent as anything you can imagine, and more people are murdered than on the Sopranos. Honestly, I don't really recommend it. But the problem is, once you start watching, you get hooked by the good acting and story.
Pope Alexander IV (1525-1605)
Jeremy Irons plays the depraved Pope Alexander, although after reading a bit of history, he might be getting a bad rap. (Just because he fathered at least 6 children, doesn't mean he was necessarily a bad church administrator. Things were different back then.)
The same is true of the notorious and beautiful Lucrezia Borgia. She was married off starting at age 13 to a series of husbands in order to form political alliances. No one really knows if the poison stories are true. There are so many portraits supposedly of Lucrezia, historians aren't even positive what she looked like.
It's interesting that this painting by Dosso Dossi called Portrait of a Youth is believed to be the only true image of Lucrezia Borgia.
Do not know about the quality of the series, but there were quite a few murders going on at that time. Check out this bio: The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de' Medici [Kindle Edition] It is really good.
ReplyDeleteThat one sounds nice and lurid. There's also a new book called "Blood and Beauty" for those of us who can't get enough of the Borgias.
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