The Borgias: The Hidden History

Holds up, and is equal to, First Season - Series 1. It does almost always hold my interest. Four stars because some of the actors are a bit over the top. The production is indeed lavish and mostly adheres to the actual history of the period, both pictorial and personal,

I've read some of the other reviews only because I felt I wasn't giving this book much of a chance, but I have to agree with some of the reviewers. I found this book entirely too crowded and congested. I normally can follow most anything but I had to go back and connect the dots too many times to figure out who was who and the connections, and in that process I grew tired of the intensity of it and put it aside and am on to something else. I may come back to this at another time, but I doubt it. My Kindle library has several reads I put down and I don't hold out much hope I'll return to them because I don't enjoy them and really dread the idea of giving it another try. A direct deposit into the Kindle graveyard.

I was looking forward to a reasonably scholarly treatment of the Borgias, given the promise of sweeping away many of the inaccuracies in most books about this dynastic family. Instead I found a narrative that read more like breathless, theatrical romance novels, except this was nonfiction. Generalities and gossipy statements about how someone felt litter this book, while precise dates, individuals, events are in short supply. I blame myself, as perhaps if I had used the "Read Inside This Book" option I could have saved myself some money and disappointment.

I received a galley proof edition of this work, free of charge, in exchange for providing a review. As such, many of the maps and family trees that may appear in the final version were not included in this draft. This review was written from the perspective of one who reads for pleasure and entertainment.

I requested a copy of this book because the subject matter and the time period both fascinate me. While I do not subscribe to SHOWTIME, and thus have not viewed the mini-series focusing on the Borgias, I was vaguely familiar with the history prior to reading this book. As it turns out, one of the author's aims in writing the book was to correct what he felt was blatant historical misrepresentation of many of the family members, based largely on poorly researched sources, many of which were certainly not without bias.

Now, in general, I'm leery of what has become a common practice of taking well established history and trying to construct new and counter intuitive arguments just for the sake of being "revisionist" or "contrarian", but what the author presents in this work bears consideration. Much of what has become "gospel" with respect to the Borgias rests on pretty flimsy evidence, largely originating with their mortal enemies, given credence by 19th century historians utilizing poor or non-existent fact checking or judgment.

I recently read and reviewed a history of Constantine and was pilloried for panning the dry and painfully boring prose, as if any kind of scholarly work could be expected to be virtually unreadable. This work is the best answer I could give to those critics. It is educational while at the same time being frequently fascinating. Of course, given the subject and time frame, how could it fail to be so? The Renaissance, The Fall of Constantinople, The Babylonian Captivity, The Great Schism, The Protestant Reformation, the never ending political machinations surrounding the great Italian city states of Florence, Milan, Venice, Naples and the Papal States, the great families and monarchs of the era and region (Ferdinand and Isabella, Sforza, Medici, Borgia, Orsini, Colonna). SHOWTIME should make a mini-series, it would be fantastic!

Now, having made good arguments for dispelling many of the more ridiculous and unfounded assertions concerning various Borgia family members, the author perhaps goes a bit too far in trying to rehabilitate the family. He pillories previous historians for attributing various personality defects to Borgia family members without reliable documentation, then proceeds to use the same tactic to smear the opponents of the Borgias, especially Cardinal della Rovere (the future Pope Julius II). He goes well beyond merely rehabilitating the Borgias and ventures into hagiography, using almost fawning adjectives to describe Rodrigo, Cesare and Lucretia. While his opponents described Rodrigo (Pope Alexander II) as blood thirsty and perverted, the author uses adjectives such as fun loving, boisterous and energetic. Cesare is stunningly handsome, cooly calculating and necessarily "strict" and "harsh" with his subordinates and rivals. Lucretia, if the author is to be believed, is destined for sainthood once her dastardly biographers see the light.

The author cautions against putting too much stock in the portrayals painted by the Borgias enemies. His standard for assessing the family members is hard evidence, but what better evidence do we have other than the writings from the period? The Borgias certainly had their supporters, how else did they rise to power and maintain that power for over a half century? The cut throat nature of the era guarantees that much of the first hand history we have is almost certainly biased, however, it is doubtful that the Borgias are the saints that the author paints them to be, given the nature of the era and the sheer weight of the negative portrayals available to us.

Put simply, if we are to follow the author's injunction, we can say nothing about any of the historical figures of the period. Everything we have is subject to being discounted for bias. That being the case, what we are left with is a mountain of documentation from the period that the author chooses to virtually discard, and having done so, declare the Borgias to be among the most virtuous historical personages of the period, with very thin evidence to support his position. Their vices, the few that he acknowledges (nepotism and political murder), are excused as being the norm for the period. However, other norms (such as ecclesiastical mistresses and children born out of wedlock) are denied by the author as it relates to Alexander.

There is some very good history here, and for that alone this is an excellent read. I would, however, caution the reader to acquaint themselves with other writers and historians of the period before blindly accepting the author's portrayal of the Borgia family members, their allies and opponents.

Making slow progress through this book. At this point I am wondering whether the contagious nature of syphilis was known by the end of 15th century. Cesare Borgia reached the second (skin lesion) stage of it while spending a lot of money to get married to a young attractive princess. The author reports that he had to cover his otherwise handsome face because of the lesions.

In ca 1500 syphilis, apparently, was quite new in Europe, some believe imported from the New World. The contagious nature of smallpox and plague was well known. Not sure about this 'French disease'.

Well, just one mysterious detail.

Otherwise this book is really for 'history buffs', not people like myself who is not capable (and not willing) to spend any mental energy on memorizing even a tiny fraction of the family tree structures not only of the Borgias but many other Italian, Spanish and other 'better' families.

I have a hard time to keep track of my own very ordinary family in Czech Republic. Most of the Borgias are confused in my head and all of the other late 15th century nobility already forgotten.

It you are a real history buff, you can probably handle it, perhaps taking copious notes and drawing about 20 or so family trees. Actually, the author suggests just that in the book: create your one graphics of the family trees - he provides only the Borgia family graph.

I am almost done with the book. It seems to be a book about Cesare Borgia with some background info added. I have no idea why the author assigns positive motives behind Cesare's decisions. Frequently, his demotions and/or killings of some of the standard Renaissance Italians is praised as a positive act while the targets disposed of mercilessly are classified as 'brutal', 'sadists' and some such.

No doubt they were but Cesare does not look much different from them to me.

Even in a book in a category of 'popular history' preconceived notions (defending Borgias, mostly Cesare) are not the right thing to do, in my opinion.

I am sorry, but I was really disappointed with this book. I appreciate that the author was trying to be fair and not demonize the Borgias, but it felt like he was trying to white wash their entire history. **Spoiler** He claimed that Rodrigo did not scheme his way to the papal throne and that the children were not actually his. What?! There's being objective and then there's being unreasonable. This book is not worth your time and make no sense. Find another book.

It is so boring so far, I don't know if I will get through it. Written in a "textbook" style way as if I were reading this in school.....just can't get interested. Maybe someone else will do better......

Imagine if Rush Limbaugh were allowed to write the definitive history of President Obama and that view became the conventional understanding of our time passed down and repeated for centuries. The author makes a convincing case that something similar happened to Pope Alexander VI and the Borgia family associated with him. After watching the dramatization of The Borgias on Showtime a few years ago I've picked up several books about them to try to flesh out the real history. Something has always bothered me about those accounts; something never smelled right. Too many, "It was said..." comments used to prop up the salacious and scandalous details. The official accounts of Alexander's actions in office and how contemporaries responded to him never matched up logically with many of the stories that have long been repeated. Meyer attempts to do what most authors don't seem to feel required to do when writing about this subject; he tries to base his account on known and often clearly documented facts. And he shows that most of the popular rumors that form the basis of most accounts begin with Borgia enemies and/or people who had no access to the information in the first place, often people who weren't even contemporaries. What emerges is a story that just flat-out makes more sense than anything I've read to this point about the Borgias.

This fascinating book strives (through meticulous research) to clean up the reputation of the Borgias as minions of satan. Meyer makes the convincing case that they were no worse than the rest of the endlessly quarrelsome and back stabbing players that gave Rennaissance Italy the texture it has passed on to the troubled Italy of today. Rodrigo Borgia, so this book says, was a highly competent administrator for the previous pope, earning a well-documented reputation for his dedication to his work. The point also is made that his famous "children" were actually his nephews and neice. Lucretzia ultimately comes through as a much loved governor.

At times it is difficult, as one reads along, to keep track of the bickering families, loyalty switches and general warfare going on between city states and the condottieri that ran them. However, the overall impression of the Italy of the period is eye-opening and well worth the read. I would recommend reading Machiavelli's "The Prince" before reading this book, however. It is not long and is available at no cost for Kindle readers. It is a great introduction to the motivations of the Borgias (particularly Cesare
Borgia) and the Italy of that period. Who knew that Machiavelli and the infamous Cesare Borgia were special friends?

After you've worked your way through those tomes, I would suggest trying "The Tigress of Forli" by Elizabeth Lev. It picks out one fascinating character during that time: Caterina Sforza, and fills in the details of one life among the myriad families, city states and general competing interests of a hugely fragmented part of Southern Europe--all of which impacted the history of the known world at the time--just around the time of the discovery of a new world (circa 1490's).

The most attractive part of G. J. Meyer's "The Borgias: The Hidden History" is not the Borgia family themselves and their ventures. People the world over know of the Borgia name and have heard at least one aspect of their infamous notoriety. What is so attractive is the fact that Mr. Meyer seizes all the commonly-held opinion about the greatest "Mafia family" and thoroughly refutes it completely. His evidence for his uncommon and sole position is in the notable nonexistence of any direct verifications or observations from Borgia contemporaries, and he hates popular experts for not only possessing an anti-Borgia purpose but also because these experts never came into direct contact with family members. His case is a compelling one, particularly in this era and time of rapid-fire media in which it is all too easy to twist headlines. According to Mr. Meyer, one family's reputation endures only because of tales penned by tyrants acknowledged to have despised the family and its ascent to power or by others so far removed from the family as to have made it unlikely for them to verify anything. Yet for ages, in the lack of direct eyewitnesses and insider knowledge, the family's character was allowed to rot. It makes for compelling ammunition, but also as it flies in the face of everything that has previously been written about this notorious family.

If Mr. Meyer is to be believed, the Borgia family and their reputation fell victim to the adage that history is written by the victors. Thanks to malicious propaganda during their lives and particularly after their deaths, the Borgia family has long since been believed to have been one of the most vicious, greedy, power-hunger, and debauched family to ever live. However, The Borgias attempts to undo the damage done by their rivals after the Borgia disgrace and does so methodically as well as plausibly. Mr. Meyer not only thoroughly explains the mess that was Renaissance Italy, with its myriad city-states and always conspiring warlords, he slowly and carefully presents the reasons why so many other historians before him were wrong. His arguments are strong enough to not only make sense but to raise serious doubt as to the supposed truth behind Cesare and Lucrezia's paternity, Rodrigo's womanizing, the family's grab for power, as well as every other unsavory rumor/factoid often told about the family.

One small caveat to this comprehensive and powerful book is that its solid descriptions of Renaissance Italy, its politics, its war-like culture, and the important power brokers of the period can make for rather tiresome reading. Each chapter starts with an analysis devoted to one period in time or one facet of life in Italy in the late 1400s. It is these expositions, or departures from Mr. Meyer's key story that manage to drag. However, Mr. Meyer's scouring and treatment of all information pertianing to the family makes it hard to dismiss his conclusions. Thanks to Mr. Meyer's and his "The Borgias: The Hidden History", one will never again look at this family as they have in the past.

The Borgias have come down to our present times as the example of how depraved the Catholic Church in general, and the papacy specifically, was during the Renaissance and Reformation. Rodrigo Borgia (aka Pope Alexander VI), Cesare, and Lucrezia have been accused of every sin and debauchery under the sun. This book attempts to dispel those slanders and libels and tell the real story, the "hidden history" of the Borgias and the times they lived in. It does so with 21 main chapters charting the Borgias' rise and fall in Renaissance Italy and with nearly as many background chapters written to either refute some of the myths at length or, more often, write about the historical and political problems the Borgias found themselves. Sadly, this structure can make for a boring and even confusing read. First, Meyer spends three-fourths more often arguing that the Borgias were not as bad as the legends say they were and assumes that everyone who has picked up this book is familiar with all of the black legends surrounding them. Indeed, Meyer's defense could boil down to "Not only were the Borgias not bad at all, but their enemies psychopaths who wanted to drag the Borgia name through the dirt for their own reason." Meyer does point out that there is practically evidence for the black legends, but I wish he had focused more on telling story than refuting a myth. Also, many of the background chapters have no bearing on the main narrative, leaving one to wonder why they were even included. All of these things could have brought down this book to a one- or two-star rating in my estimation. However, the improves dramatically when Mr. Meyer reaches the final part, which focuses solely on Cesare Borgia, the conqueror of the Romagna and model for Machiavelli's "The Prince." Here Mr. Meyer switches to telling a rather fascinating story that injects some real flesh and blood into the character while refuting the slanders surrounding him through example rather than argument. I wish he had done the same thing in the first three parts. Overall, you will have to slog your way through some tedious chapters on Pope Alexander VI's rise to power and esoteric talk about Renaissance Italian politics, but the chapters on Cesare Borgia do pay off in the end.

G. J. Meyer is a former journalist who is now engaged in writing history books. His previous book was The Tudors. In that book he set out to convince readers that the Tudors were worse than history had thus far portrayed them. At the time that book was published, there was a popular cable television program also called The Tudors that portrayed the eponymous English monarchs as less than stellar individuals. Meyer's new book The Borgias has been released while another popular cable television show with the same name is coincidentally acting as a superb marketing advantage. In The Borgias, Meyer's thesis is that the famous Italian Renaissance family that produced a Pope, a cutthroat Cardinal/warrior and an (apparently) extremely misunderstood expert on poisons, were much better people than history has thus far portrayed them.

The Borgias (the book) is a great deal of fun to read. Meyer is vocal in announcing his agenda of rehabilitating the image of this family that once seemed beyond rehabilitation. Because he has such an admittedly unique viewpoint, I occasionally found myself dealing with nagging questions as to whether Meyer's facts were being "colored" or "shaped" to further his thesis. With doubts such as those, the issue as to whether this is legitimate history is a natural one to raise. I have discovered no obvious distortions of facts. It thus becomes a question of interpretation and historical emphasis, both of which Meyer is expert in using to further his thesis that the Borgias have been maligned. What is beyond dispute is the sheer pleasure this topic provides and the brilliant way the author organizes his material. If you are fascinated by the Borgias (and who isn't?), this book is a must.

G. J. Meyer has written an interesting work arguing that the Borgias weren't nearly as bad as they're typically made out to have been. Coming on the heels of his book on The Tudors, in which he argued that they were actually much worse than is generally thought, this might seem like revisionism merely for the sake of taking a novel point of view, almost bordering on contrarianism. To Meyer's credit, however, it seems to have more to do with his insistence on following the evidence wherever it leads, and (just as important in the case of the Borgias) not being taken in by bad or weak evidence or believing the most outlandish allegations in the face of an utter lack of evidence.

This is not to say that he makes them out to be saints, but rather that he tries to present only what we actually know with at least some degree of probability and within their historical context. Rodrigo Borgia, who became Pope Alexander VI, for example, appears (as Meyer presents him) to have been a relatively decent pontiff in some respects by the standards of the time, though Meyer is quick to acknowledge his actual faults so far as we can know them, particularly his nepotism in his later years in advancing Cesare (who Meyer plausibly argues was not in fact Rodrigo's illegitimate son but rather a great-nephew, as Rodrigo's alleged mistress still lived in Spain until after most of her children were born while Rodrigo was living in Italy).

Cesare doesn't come off quite so well, in that the sometimes violent means by which he pursued his ambition ultimately came back to haunt him, but even he is not that atypical of his times in that respect and the more monstrous allegations against him seem to be the baseless later inventions of the Borgias' political enemies, such as that he had an incestuous relationship with his sister, Lucretia.

And it is Lucretia whose wickedness seems to have been most exaggerated, if not invented out of whole cloth, according to Meyer. There is no evidence to support the claims that she was a murderess (by poisoning or any other method) or the aforementioned incest.

If all this sounds a bit disappointing to those interested in a biography of the Borgias hoping for stories of scandalous excess, for those interested in a more objective historical approach Meyer does a fine job presenting a vivid picture of the papacy during the period of the Italian Renaissance. Worth a read.

Of all the families associated with the papal throne, the Borgias are the most notorious. Rodrigo Borgia was a legendary womanizer who bought the highest office in the Roman Catholic Church and then used his position to gain wealth and kingdoms for his illegitimate children. Cesare Borgia was a ruthless warrior who would stop at nothing to gain power; his sister Lucrezia was a beautiful woman who knew her way around poison bottles. These two children - only the most prominent of the many bastards produced by Pope Alexander VI - were incestuous lovers; in a jealous rage, Cesare killed one of his sister's husbands.

Or so the legends go...

In this new history of the Borgia family, G. J. Meyer attempts to separate fact from myth and discover who these Borgias really were. His research, including a forgotten archive of documents assembled in the early 20th century by Peter de Roo, discounts many of the legends about Pope Alexander VI and his family. Meyer discounts many of history's most controversial claims, writing that contrary to popular belief, Rodrigo Borgia was not *nearly* as wealthy as stories claim, Lucrezia and Cesare were *not* his children, and while he used his position to elevate his family, to do so was the norm for popes of the age, making him no more nepotistic than his predecessors or successors. The family's poor reputation was promoted by their enemies, especially the feudal lords displaced by Alexander and Cesare's efforts to restore control over the Papal States. The book is divided into four sections: Alonso (the first Borgia pope), Rodrigo, Alexander, and Cesare.

Meyer's account of the family is really different from any I've ever read before. In a way, it was quite boring, since every salacious and juicy bit of gossip was dismissed as fabrication by jealous rivals or misunderstandings by historians. I mean, I am all for truth in history, but part of me wants the Borgias to be incorrigibly evil, because it makes *such* a good story. I am willing to be convinced that many of the outrageous claims are false - it never made sense to me that Lucrezia could be a poison master, or that she was the lover of both her brother and her father. But I'm also not certain that the extreme rehabilitation attempted by Meyer is possible.

Meyer claims that Rodrigo Borgia, rather than being a womanizer with 4-9 bastard children, was simply a good-natured, loving uncle who cared very deeply for his nieces and nephews. Not only did he abstain from fathering any children, he was true to his vows of chastity, because if it cannot be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had mistresses, there must be nothing to those rumors at all. I'm simply unconvinced.

I do appreciate the attention Meyer draws to the many good things Pope Alexander VI achieved during his reign. He did exercise diplomacy carefully to avoid war, and he did much to help unite the Italian peninsula. His early reforms within the church and his introduction of many new cardinals were controversial, but in the long run they were beneficial to the church. Meyer also describes the career of the first Borgia pope, Callixtus III, and the four popes that separate him from Alexander VI. I appreciated this context, because it helped illustrate just how typical Alexander was in the way that he handed out positions to family and friends. So little is known about Alexander's early life that learning about his predecessors introduced the environment in which he was learning his trade.

Little "mini-chapters" introduce random topics to help bring more political or social context to readers unfamiliar with Italian history. One might explain the role of Milan and Ludovico Sforza in Italian politics or the difficulties of Venice as they wrestled to hold back the Turks. They're really helpful.

This is an interesting spin on Borgia history, and definitely worth a read. Meyer's writing style is very easy and humorous, so you don't have to be a Renaissance scholar to keep up. If you've been watching The Borgias, you should definitely read this book - it's a nice counterbalance to the glamorous excesses of Showtime.

Going into Meyer's book, I'll be the first to admit I didn't know much about the Borgias other than what I saw in the "Assassin's Creed" series of video games (the second and third games take place during Rodrigo Borgia's rise to the papacy) and the general overview I got during a tour of Italy. What I learned piqued my interest but also sounded unbelievable - seriously, a pope having illegitimate children then encouraging incest between them?

Meyer does a pretty good job of addressing all the fantastic stories and then examining the evidence to see if they hold water. Unfortunately, because we're talking about events half a millennium in the past, a lot of them end in "well, we can't be sure, but it's [likely/unlikely] considering what we do know."

The book is divided into four parts. The first quarter of the book focuses on Alonso Borgia, who became Pope Calixtus III. Part two is Rodrigo Borgia's rise through the church, while part three is Rodrigo's papacy after he became Alexander VI. The final quarter concerns Cesare Borgia. Lucrezia Borgia is mentioned throughout the book, but since Meyer debunks many of the stories about her, she doesn't get a dedicated section. There's also a short "Examining Old Assumptions" epilogue that touches on stories Meyer didn't mention (or only mentioned in passing) in the main story.

This book is *very* thorough, and thus is *very* dense; it's not conducive to putting down and then picking up two weeks later, as I did. It reminds me a lot of George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series in that there is a massive cast of characters that all play into three concurrent plots, and one has a hard time keeping all the minor characters straight.

All that being said, Meyer's book is an enjoyable and educational read I would easily recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in history.

I learned three things from this book: firstly that the popular account of the Borgias family's steamy life is almost all untrue; secondly, that the realities of governing a principality in renaissance Italy (and the pope was a primarily a governor of the papal states) required wealth, ruthlessness and cunning in an environment where loyalty was found almost only (but not always) in family members; and finally, that it is possible to understand, if explained properly, at least the major forces, and their origins, which dominated politics in the Italian centered world from 1450 - 1505, the period that the book spans. I was captivated by the author's flowing, clear style, fascinated by his explanation of the way in which, and the reasons why, over the 14th century and decades of the 15th the shifting balance of power between the major families (Sforza, Colonna, Orsini, D'Este, ...), dukedoms (Milan, Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice, Papal States..), papal dynasties (Della Rovere, Borgias) and empires (Spanish, French, German, Turkish) continuously re-formed and re-aligned with new alliances, attacks and marriages. The shifts are so swift, and often so tortuous, that it is the impression, rather than the details that remain most vividly. The extreme brutality of the age, the unbridled ambition and the differences between the feudal and the republican powers are indelibly imprinted on the reader's mind.

The book is divided into 4 parts: it starts with the ascent to the papacy of Alonso, Pope Alexander's Spanish uncle, then covers Rodrigo Borgia's life before becoming pope as Alexander VI, then his early to mid papacy and finally Cesare's rise to prominence in the final part of his papacy. Each chapter is preceded by a short "background"" chapter which discuss a topic important to the understanding of the historic events following, e.g. the rise of il Regno, the Neapolitan dukedom. This enables the flow of the chapters to run unimpeded, whilst the reader obtains the knowledge necessary to penetrate the thicket of Italy's tangled history. He also gives much relevant detail about the popes between Callxtus III and Julius II, such that one understands not only the ecclesiastical but also the political forces that shaped their elections, their decisions and their nepotistic excesses. Likewise he gives great colour to the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, the House of Naples, the ever warring families of the Orsini and Colonna, the ruling families of Milan (Visconti and Sforza) as well as many others. He describes many fascinating personalities including Machiavelli, Catherine Sforza, Guliano della Rovere, Ferrante of Naples, Savanarola and Charles VIII of France, not to mention the pope's putative offspring. These, Meyer assures us were really his nephews and makes a convincing case for it. His explanation of the mores and habits of the time add great colour and understanding to the misinterpreted behaviours of Alexander, his nephews Cesare, niece Lucrezia as well as his supposed mistresses Vannozza and Giulia Farnese.

The author's psychological analysis of Alexander is most captivating. The moral fiber and organisational skills he showed as vice-chancellor to 4 popes, his skillful manipulation of the shifting balance of power in Italy and beyond and finally his grudgingly subservient behaviour to, and financing of, Cesare's ambitions are all interestingly combined to a portrait of a great, if subsequently mis-reported leader of church and state. The author appears to have no religious drum to beat, which increases the credibility and readability of the book. Interestingly, although this is the era of the great artists, they hardly get a mention. This is refreshing as most books covering the period are more focused on the artistic or humanistic aspects. For those like me, whose view of the Borgias had been formed by the most enjoyable but equally inaccurate TV series with Jeremy Ives, The Borgias, the author rectifies the most glaring inconsistencies as well as giving a lot of information about the real, equally sinister Michelotto.

I highly recommend this book. It is readable, highly informative and unopinionated. It contains many genealogical trees (including an alternative one for the Borgias), interesting portrait reproductions of the key players and a section at the back on exploding the myths.

Phew! This is not an easy read! Meyer may have set out to write a book about the Borgias, but what he's really produced is a geopolitical overview of the Italian city/states and Europe during what you might call the "Borgia years" - mid 1400s to early 1500s. The argument certainly can be made that detailed, elaborate context is required to fully understand and accurately interpret the evidence related to the Borgias. Even so, I feel like the author went WAY beyond the stated scope of his project; whole sections of this dense work barely even mention the Borgias.

Having said that, I appreciated the opportunity to learn more about this fascinating epoch in human history, which has much to teach us about the senseless, futile butchery and misery that results when people devote themselves exclusively to the pursuit of wealth and power. This has always been the rap against the Borgias, of course; that in an age characterized by grotesque excesses of violence, passion, and ambition, they played the game more ruthlessly - and more successfully - than any of the other great families ...

... or did they? Meyer does a fairly thorough job of presenting the "evidence" against the Borgias (much of which, tainted as it is by hearsay and bias, would never be accepted as "evidence" now), placing the evidence in context, and making the case that the Borgias have been much maligned. Sure (he argues), the Borgia popes may have engaged in gross nepotism, but a case can be made that they were competent administrators who advanced by virtue of luck and ability rather than a sleazy combination of simony, threats, and mass poisoning; Cesare may have justly served as the model for Machievelli's The Prince, but he wasn't noticeably more brutal or amoral than his peers; and poor Lucrezia may have gone through three husbands, but there's no actual evidence supporting the allegations that she was an amoral temptress who actively plotted their deaths.

Given the dearth of historical records, and the distortions contained in the documents that have survived (history is written by the winners, it is justly said), I'm not sure there's any way now to know where the truth lies; all I will say is that Meyer manages to make a fairly convincing case that a critical reassessment of accepted wisdom may be justified.

In summary, there's much here to recommend. The topic is worthwhile, Meyer certainly knows his period, and he does a creditable job of shaping the convoluted material into a form that's relatively accessible and interesting. However, I'm not sure other readers are going to be as tolerant of his geopolitical digressions as I was, and the denseness of the subject matter requires an application of concentration that some may be unwilling to expend.

This book is seriously mislabeled; the title (subtitle especially) makes it sound lurid and sensationalist, anything but what it mostly is: a large, serious history of a very busy time and place. Yes, it does get a bit revisionist, but that's the least of it.

Mostly, this is a big book. 478 pp., but I don't mean just page count, I mean the book covers several big overlapping but different subjects. At the geographically highest level, it's a history of Italy in the 15th-early 16th centuries: the whole constellation of ducal Milan, serene Venice, artistic/mercantile Florence, royal Naples, Rome and the complex and unwieldy Papal States, all the other smaller bit players, plus rising powers in the greater distance like Spain, France, and the Turks. Of that great big historical topic, Meyer covers Roman/Papal politics more particularly than the other areas, certainly in more detail than most other histories at this level, focussing on the efforts to forge a coherent regional power out of what had always been a hodgepodge at best, then after a half-century schism during which no vassals had been living up to any of their responsibilities, and feud and vendetta had been very much the order of the day. And then within that subject, as Rodrigo Borgia becomes more and more a key player in Roman politics and administration, we move into the more personal and family sphere -- and when you combine "family" and "Borgia," you open up a whole new chapter of worms.

Emphatically not the standard one. Meyer takes the position that pretty much the whole great Borgia story as we know and shudder at it was written down years after the fact, with no documentary evidence or even support, much of it indeed coming from known enemies of the family. Most likely, Cesare and Lucrezia were Rodrigo's legitimate nephew and niece not his natural children (the family tree is more like a dense and bushy thicket here). Nepotism happened, but not out of proportion to other clerical families, and there were times it made a certain amount of sense in political context. Brute-force power politics happened, but this was the age of Macchiavelli and of the Italian Wars.

Meyer points out elements of the classic story that simply cannot be true for straightforward chronological and medical reasons, and that there's practically nothing of the black legend that *must* be true on any such objective basis, so historians really ought to feel more obligated to raise the explicit question "How do we know?" And his answer is, we really don't know for sure that they were very bad people, especially as early-Renaissance political figures went; Cesare doesn't necessarily come across as especially nice, but all contemporary accounts of Rodrigo (before elevation anyway) rather do, apparently.

This is not to say that I don't think the book has its problems. Mostly, I found it too big, too unfocussed; I personally was reading for the political history content but it went on too long at too much detail for what claims to be a family history foremost -- I can only keep track of so many Colonna and Orsini before they pall on me. When Cesare starts consolidating the Romagna, we don't need the the exact chronology of minor city by minor city. I am sure half the readers attracted to the book just by the title gave up before they were a hundred pages in.

And then there's the whole revisionist subject. I think Meyer has made a good case for questioning the classic story, but there's times when he does seem to be pleading just a little too hard, when he'll just throw up his hands with "Yep, Cesare probably did this or that guy, for no good reason," when he turns around and demonizes Cardinal della Rovere just a little too nastily. My point is, despite all the history writing I enthused about above, this content is what makes it a new book and what justifies the provocative subtitle, and if your main thesis is "Everything you know is wrong" you should come out and address it a little more directly. Meyer really does himself a disservice by squirreling it away in a background chapter on "The Paternity Question," an afterword on "Examining Old Assumptions," and other asides here and there.

Scholarly apparatus does not impress: four index columns (1.25 pages) under "Borgia, Cesare" is not useful, plus the whole presentation of "Everything you know is wrong" above.

Who are the Borgias?

Here is what Wikipedia has to say

"The Borgia family (aka Borja, Borjia and Borges) became prominent during the Renaissance in Italy. They were from Valencia, the name coming from the family fief of Borja, then in the kingdom of Aragon, in Spain.

The Borgias became prominent in ecclesiastical and political affairs in the 15th and 16th centuries, producing two popes, Alfons de Borja who ruled as Pope Calixtus III during 1455-1458 and Rodrigo Lanzol Borgia, as Pope Alexander VI, during 1492-1503.

Especially during the reign of Alexander VI, they were suspected of many crimes, including adultery, simony, theft, rape, bribery, incest, and murder (especially murder by arsenic poisoning). Because of their grasping for power, they made enemies of the Medici, the Sforza, and the Dominican friar Savonarola, among others. They were also patrons of the arts who contributed to the Renaissance.

Today they are remembered for their corrupt rule, and the name has become a synonym for libertinism, nepotism, treachery and poisoners."

Anyone would agree that this is not a very attractive description. Most of the other sources in the internet has only worse things to say. One well known site even puts Pope Calixtus III (Alfonso Borgia) among the twenty five most evil people of the 15th century. Most published books of the history of the Borgias are also in the same vein,

Now in this book, Mr.Meyer tries to set the history straight. With thorough research, excellent analysis and trying to keep a neutral line he explores how much of the legend is true and what has been made up. He quickly arrives at the conclusion that most of the terrible stories about the Borgias were made up. But then he goes to find out what were the forces acting at that time and later, to twist history and depict the Borgias in such a cruel manner.

Very well written, this story is better than many fiction that I see. Not only are the Borgias exonerated, but Meyer also gives a fascinating account of Christianity and the Church in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the history of Italian nation states like Florence, Venice, Naples, Milan as well as a host of smaller independent city states. Many chapters come with a succinct background summary - thereby giving a quick overview of the history of the church as well as the states for a few earlier centuries as well. Just reading about how the Popes were elected (this book covers about 6 elections) itself would make any Christian shudder. The lives and actions of the Popes and Cardinals will make anyone wonder how any organized religion can survive. I was reminded of Matt Ridley's statement in his book 'Irrational Optimist' on how 'Priests, Chiefs and Thieves' come into existence as soon as people start living in groups.

Some parts of the book are not an easy read - the stories get frighteningly complex with a large number of characters with similar names, fast changing alliances, numerous side stories and their different versions - that it can beat most mythological stories in complexity. But if you are interested in any of the subjects mentioned above, this book is definitely worth reading.

There has been a lot of scandal associated with the Borgia family in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. Meyer cuts through all that and gives you what can be verified and makes sense from the evidence available in a very well written family history. The Borgias were a parvenu family from Spain until brought to Italy by the first Borgia pope in the mid 1400's. Wily and talented Rodrigo who became Pope Alexander VI in the same year Columbus discovered the Americas, served as a chief Vatican administrator under four popes before taking the Papal crown himself. With his gifted and handsome nephew, Cesare and his beautiful and graceful niece, Lucretia he formed a power base of the scattered Papal states so that the Papal seat once again was a player in world politics. This put the Vatican which had been weakened for centuries by inept administrators, schisms and foreign patronage at perhaps its most pivotal and strongest ever independent position during the blossoming of the Italian Renaissance and when the Roman Catholic Church was just being challenged by the Reformation.

To begin with, I don't know very much about the Borgias. At all. I've heard about the supposed adultery, incest, poisonings and murder, amongst other bad stuff, but not the details. I've seen neither of the television series The Borgias nor Borgia (although the latter is in my queue), and I don't recall watching any movies featuring them either. However, I do love history and am always interested in the facts and rumors being examined further to find something closer to the truth. G. J. Meyer delves into what has been the "accepted" history of the Borgias to cast new light on this dynasty.

The Borgias: The Hidden History is a thoroughly researched and well-written history of not only the Borgias, but also of the people and circumstances surrounding those times. As a casual reader of non-fiction, I became overwhelmed at times by the breadth of information contained in between the covers, but found it fascinating all the same. I wouldn't call it dry by any means, only extremely detailed. I like that each chapter is broken into two sections: one which is the main history and then following that is background on something previously mentioned that provides better understanding of the time and situation. While I'm not one to accept every claim put forth by Meyer (I have a very "question everything" attitude), I do think a lot of his assertions are very likely, and the others lie somewhere between rumor and this revision. Overall, I enjoyed reading the book and learned a profuse amount while doing so. I only hope I'll be able to retain at least some of this information. Also featured in the book is a timeline, family tree, maps, and color inserts of some of the major players of this time.

For those who don't read non-fiction regularly and are unfamiliar with this time in history, I'd say this is best read a little at a time, but it's a very rewarding piece of history that enlightens as well as turns accepted facts on their head. I definitely recommend The Borgias: The Hidden History and will be sure to pick up Meyer's The Tudors: The Complete Story of England's Most Notorious Dynasty as well.

Few historical families have been painted in as unfavorable light as the Borgias. They are generally depicted is sexual deviants and murders, and the Borgia Popes - Calixtus III and Alexander VI, are generally rated among the worst. This book paints a much different picture. The author finds almost nothing in the contemporaneous record to support the charges of incest, the purchase of their papacy and wanton murder that have been leveled at the Borgias. The author ascribes the crimes purported to have been committed by the Borgias to slanders of their enemies, of whom there were many, and to the hostility of the Protestants who were anxious to paint them in the worst possible light. Furthermore, he makes the case that Calixtus III was a good Pope, and that Alexander VI's worst crimes were in his attempts to recover the Papal authority over the Papal states, and for his promoting his relatives to church offices, both of which were actions done by all the other Renaissance Popes.

The book covers:
­- Alfonso Borgia, his rise to become Pope Calixtus III and his papacy
­- Rodrigo Borgia - his elevation to cardinal by his uncle Alfonso and his eventual rise to become Pope Alexander VI
­- there is a lot of discussion refuting the contention that Rodrigo was the father of Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia.
­- much of the book is devoted to Alexander's attempts to regain control of the Papal States, much of this through the actions of Cesare Borgia
­- a whole section of the book is devoted to Cesare Borgia
­- the book covers Lucrezia Borgia and refutes the charges that she was sexually promiscuous, had sexual relations with Pope Alexander VI (incest if one believes that he was her father), or incestuous relations with her brother Cesare. It also refutes the idea that she was a master poisoner or that she ever poisoned anyone
­- the book provides a wealth of information on Italy during the Renaissance, the Popes of this period, the struggle between Spain and France for control of Italy, as well as virtually everything that you may have wanted to know about the Borgias.

I highly recommend this book to all those interested in a very well written and lively history book.

This is a very well-written account of one of Europe's most infamous families. Unlike many history works, it isn't too hard to read, nor does it bog down in mind-numbing, largely irrelevant details, instead focusing on the key moments in the lives of the Borgias from Alfons through Cesare. Most notably, although history has treated the Borgia reputation cruely, Meyer takes a more nuanced view, repeating only some of the salacious allegations against them and noting that many of those allegations are unsupported by historic fact or were lodged by individuals with something to gain by slanderin the Borgia name. In some instances, I personally felt Meyer was reaching a bit in his defense of the Borgias, as he would speculate about motives that they or their rivals might have that almost certainly could not be derived from a historical document, but nonetheless, I appreciate his perspective.

Regardless of Meyer's view of the Borgias, the book itself does a commendable job of examining and explaining the world in which the Borgias lived - the incredible interactions between the Italian city-states, the French and Spanish kings, the Hapsburgs, and the Vatican's relationship with each of the foregoing. To me, Meyer absolutely succeeds in framing the context in which the Borgias lived, while doing so in a very "readable" and engaging fashion. Remember that this was the era of Machiavelli (who is definitely featured in this book), and the often brutal interplay between the various city states is fascinating.

In all, this is a very good read, on an interesting subject, and Meyer's willingness to take a fresh look at the Borgia family makes this a worthy read. Definitely recommended.

This is a surprisingly readable history of the Borgia family and their pre-eminence in the Renaissance. I was surprised to read that most of the notorious legends surrounding the family were posthumous and written by people who did not know them! These stories were self serving for the people who perpetuated them.

I like the way the book is laid out. The chapters continue the chronological story of Rodrigo Borgia and has an end section entitled `Background' where Meyer's sets the information in a larger picture of both the times he's writing about and the larger world history of what caused or contributed to that chapter's incidents. Also, included is an extensive bibliography as well as notes.

According to Meyers' research Rodrigo was a hardworking and dedicated, and highly skilled servant of the Church AND that Lucrezia, Juan and Caesar where NOT his children as is commonly alleged. Though Meyers takes great pains to correct the many falsehoods he mostly fails in making Pope Alexander VI come alive though he vastly succeeds in showing what an extraordinary administrator he was especially in the context of his times. One thing that especially struck me is Islam and Christianity were pitted against one another for supremacy and with all the bloodshed Christianity barely came out the `winner'. Sadly this is a war that was fought over and over during the Renaissance and prior and is still being fought.

After an interesting and well written opening, the author switches into a style and voice that makes reading about the Borgias boring. I didn't expect dramatizations in a history book of this type, but I also didn't expect for the subjects of the book to almost seem like sub-characters in their own history. Rather than enjoying a history of the Borgias during a very interesting time in history, I felt like I was being forced to read a collection of facts and figures in preparation for an exam.

As to the fact that this book doesn't use the standard characterizations of the Borgias, I applaud that. They were people of their time and it was a brutal time. The author supplies adequate support that they were likely no worse than others were at that time and possible somewhat less psychotic than many of the people they were dealing with. Perhaps, when all is said and done, that is the reason this book is somewhat boring: once the salacious gossip is removed, the Borgias may not be all that interesting to read (or write) about.

The book was worth the read if for no other reason than that I discovered how very little of what I thought I knew to be facts about the Borgias is supported by historical evidence.

Pros:
- Sticks to the facts that he considers credible rather than delving into gossip.
- Does not actually state that many of the things that are commonly believed about the Borgias are not true, but merely that there is insufficient evidence to support a case for or against these beliefs.

Cons:
Too many parenthetical (or should be parenthetical) notes about genealogy and other historical references. Maybe history buffs are thrilled to realize that the current person being written about has a child whose illegitimate child will later go on to marry the second cousin twice removed of blah, blah, blah, but it seemed like extraneous information to me.

When reading any piece of history that is previously unfamiliar to me, I am always left wondering what is true and what isn't. But as they say history is written by the victors so I guess in the long run, the Borgias must have been the losers because their name has been adequately sullied over the years. They have been implicated in sex scandals, illegitimate children, incest and corruption on a level that would rival many of today's mafia families.

According to this author, the Borgias were no different from any rich, powerful families of that era. Yes, they were ruthless and would resort to extreme ends to get their way but the author argues that they were in no way much different from other such powerful families of the time. Perhaps some of the resentment towards them stemmed from their successes and their almost exclusive devotion to family above all else. This author believes that their rivals then concocted outlandish stories to sully the Borgia name as the final revenge. The author also lays some of the blame for the lurid tales at the feet of the emerging protestant powers who loved nothing better than to point fingers at what they saw as a corrupt institution, the catholic church.

Despite my ignorance on the Borgias, I was struck by Meyers attempt to use the exact same tactics used by those he claims defame the Borgias. He uses an almost universal brush to paint Borgia detractors as evil. As I stated earlier, since I do no know much about this era, I can't attest to the truth of those statements. It just struck me that he was willing to absolve the Borgias of almost every accusation while believing the worst of their critics.

All in all, I did like this book. I did find it to be somewhat overwhelming at times and dense but it is a historical book and that is to be expected.

Fifteenth century Italy was a roiling caldron broken up into some 250 separate state-kingdoms, each with its own ruler, its own laws and sometimes its own language. The biggest state by far was Naples, extending on the Italian peninsula from mid-leg to the boot. Milan and Venice were highly visible states as was Florence where superb artists seemed to rise and bloom like lilies of the field. Italian Renaissance evokes that awesome and romantic period, the epitome of great art. However, Italy was in reality an curdled mess, where every man had to watch his back, where lies, subterfuge,and vicious character assassination was not only commonplace, moral turpitude was a way of life. Licentiousness and military bravado were rampant and even the so-called celibate Cardinals and many popes produced bastards on a regular basis.

Any author trying to find truth has to separate the grain from the chaff from the very convoluted history of Renaissance Italy. Meyer succeeds in spreading out this complicated tapestry before you so the lives of the players on this stage are are distinct from one another.

On page 237 of the book, the author says, "For five hundred years it has been pretty much universally understood...accepted is a better word...that Cesare Borgia and his siblings were Alexander VI's children...That although it long ago became impossible to establish the truth beyond a possibility of doubt, it appears that Cesare and his siblings were not...indeed almost could not have been...the children of Rodrigo Borgia." He goes on to explain his reasons.

"The Borgias" is fairly heavy going as the book is packed with historical facts and situations. However, the book is well worth the time spent to finish it as you will feel enlightened. Recommended!

This is a very well-written book that is geared for the average historical book reader. It tells the tale of the Borgia family, from its first pope, through the death of the last famous (or infamous) person Cesare. Along the way we become acquainted with various Borgia relatives, but most of all with Rodrigo Borgia, who becomes Pope Alexander VI.

This was a time of great fragmentation on the Italian peninsula, with warlords in control of various towns, and many of those theoretically owing allegiance and money and men to the Pope when he needed an army for one thing or another. It was also an era when churchmen led armies, particularly cardinals, who often were more bloodthirsty than their own soldiers.

It's a fascinating look at those times, and we get views not only of Italy, but Naples, France, Spain, Venice, etc.. It really could get confusing, but the author keeps everything very straightforward. His main contention is that the Borgia family members were not the inhuman monsters that later writers made them out to be. The Pope was a nepotist, that's true, but that was not unusual for the time. Murders were committed for one reason or another, and often later writers would place blame for these murders, and also poisonings, on the Borgias, who, it must be said, were extremely unpopular in their own time, and absolutely vilified after they were gone.

I greatly enjoyed the revisionist tenor of the book, for it's quite difficult to present a true picture about people and events from 500 years ago. The author has done the best he could, and I applaud him for it, and recommend this book highly.

The Borgias family has been labeled as immoral and wicked for hundreds of years. This book asserts that these allegations are either poorly documented, questionable or improbable, or just fabricated lies. The enemies of the Borgias spread rumors about them and these lies became accepted as fact over the years. Europe was a tangled mess of rivalries in the 15th century and was unable to repel the Ottoman Empire invasion in the East. The Borgias contributed to the political intrigue of those times. This book vividly protrays the flamboyant characters, rivalries, warring families, and military battles that shaped Europe during the 1400s and the early 1500s.

Excellent work! The author presents well-researched, insightful, factual, unbiased information about the life and times of the Borgias and the complexities of Renaissance Italy with its many city/states. He also provides a wonderful overview of the international panorama at the time in France, Britain, Spain, Eastern Europe and the Ottoman empire. Great job bringing this complex web together into a masterful, clear presentation. Most significantly, the author is also able to show that the Borgia family saga has been re-written multiple times to suit agendas of a variety of religious and political groups. This is no news - the manipulation and re-writing of historical events has been a common occurrence for centuries. G.J. Meyer brilliantly shows that the Borgia story is one of these examples. Sadly, even with this book now available, many people remain unaware and continue to believe in the old, made-up stories about the Borgias, basing their opinions on poorly researched history books or TV shows.

In this book author G. J. Meyer tries to set the record straight on perhaps the most famous family in the European history. The claim is that the Borgias family despite their power had so many enemies that as history went along it was their enemies and "victims" that wrote the strikes and history in a negative light. Meyer tries to put this aside and reveal a more unbiased and objective look. Some may say this is revisionist history, I feel the research and work done by Meyer is just about as valid as any other historical work, albeit it is written in a more popular tone than what you may get from a history professor.

Meyer tries to tackle the stories of the family's history of murder, incest, and general debauchery, and while I guess it is believable that the family and its various members may not have been as ruthless, ambitious or as conniving as we all read or were taught growing up, but I always figured no non-royal family could ever get as must power and influence as the Borgias did without some crazy stuff going on.

Despite what you may think about Meyer's tone or purpose in making the Borgias appear to be more benevolent then sinister this book is a fun and relatively easy read. And it is a good size book as well. So this may be great for a vacation read, long plane flights, a generally fun read and recommended.

If you have any questions about the book feel free to leave a comment below and I will do my best to answer it.

Having always been intrigued with history I gobbled up this book wanting to know as much as I could find out about the Borgias. Since I've been hooked on the television series and was disappointed to discover after its 3rd season it has been canceled this book was all the more interesting.

I will admit that I did not read from the first page to the last in any order but skipped around wanting to keep track of the story and find out what eventually happened to each member of the family. This book did not disappoint. Anyone who is curious about the origins of the so-called "mafia" certainly can read a tale of intrigue and debauchery when it comes to every conceivable sin known to man. The characters are wild, crazy and unafraid of any intimidation whatsoever. In today's scene it is hard to imagine such horrors taking place especially when it came to the Pope and his immediate circle of friends & family. The 1500's were a time of wanton lust, murder and any crime imaginable to attain a given end.

This is a terrific tale made all the more vivid because it's true. I only wish the television series had taken this description and story more to heart and lengthened the telling of what was one of the most unbelievable families in the history of Italy.

When the name Borgia is mentioned, it is in a derogatory context and that is what the common use of the name is, a use of the lowest means to an evil end. A tribute to greed and selfishness in all things. This book give a little pause to that attitude. By taking us through much of the family history,the author almost takes the attitude of a defense attorney for a murderer in that the family history is brought in as contributing to the attitude and actions that made this family synonymous with evil. It really is hard to accept but it also is undeniable that one cannot label or condemn based on a name alone, individual actions are what people should be judged by. Going through this family history is an interesting journey and I could not help but see myself as a juror at times, judging the actions of this family but also wondering about those who had to grow up in families (think Mafiosi) with this type of history where you are judged before you take a single step and are never independent of this influence.

This history of the Borgia family (an incredibly influential family of Italians) focuses on four of the main family members from the 15th century: Alonso, Rodrigo, Alexander, and Cesare. The author tries to provide a new interpretation of some of the family's secrets and scandals. I'm not sure how much I bought it, but it was interesting to read a different version of a story I was somewhat familiar with already.

I thought the author did a great job of bringing the central historical figures to life, but the book was sometimes bogged down in details and lengthy asides that only seemed tangentially related to the central focus of the Borgia family. I know that sometimes there is a lack of historical knowledge about happenings from so long ago, but I'd prefer to have a somewhat sketchy but shorter book, as opposed to a lengthy book with some lengthy descriptions of unimportant topics.

Still, overall it was a good book. The Borgia family had enough intrigue and tumultuous political and personal affairs to make the story extremely entertaining.

This book was my first foray into the Borgia legend. Problem is it did not satisfy my curiosity. It made me want to read other works, because this one is so lacking in material about Rodrigo Borgia as to make it plain that the author must have simply omitted much of the negative evidence about Rodrigo. Was that in order not to have to deal with it? Meyer's basic premise is that other figures like Pope Julius II hated Rodrigo and made up stories to assassinate his character. This is just a hypothesis and in my opinion he didn't prove it because he did not present enough of the negative evidence (such as Johann Burchard's) and disprove it. He is like a criminal court jury which needs to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt with documentary evidence totally free of any possible anti-Borgia bias that the Borgias really were as bad as they've been portrayed. On the other hand he is quite at home accepting that everyone else at the time was as evil as they have been portrayed. Why should the author not be as skeptical about those characterizations as he is of the Borgias?

I was surprised and disappointed at how minor a character Rodrigo is in this book. It's as if this is a book about the Renaissance wars rather than the Borgias. I felt that the author left out so much damning evidence against Rodrigo, be it gossip or not, as to make his conclusions unconvincing.

I gave it three stars because it was a good read and was very informative about the wars in Renaissance Italy at the time. I don't recommend this book if you want details of Rodrigo Borgia's life both before and after he became pope. And don't accept the author's conclusions before you read at least one other book about the Borgias and judge for yourself.

The Borgia family has suffered from a less than stellar reputation, to put it mildly. Rumor, gossip and innuendo have been repeated as fact, even by otherwise serious historians. In this book, Meyer attempts to set the record straight. (I cannot say "successfully" attempts, though I'd like to, because, as we Ricardians know, it takes a good deal more than one book to defeat centuries of slander.) Meyer says that "the great challenge of Borgia history [is] the need to distinguish between what can be accepted as true or at least probable on the basis of credible evidence and what was fabricated after the fact but has been endlessly repeated because of its usefulness in showing yet another Borgia to have been odious." That is a standard that should not be limited to a discussion of the Borgias. It should be the first thing told to students in History 101.

Meyer, convincingly I think, shows that the Borgias were like pretty much any other well-connected, wealthy Renaissance family. Family was of the utmost importance. You found jobs for your sons and nephews in the Church or the military. The Vatican being a major source of power, prestige and wealth, you tried to have a Pope or two, not to mention a few cardinals. You married your daughters and nieces to men of standing. All your family's marital alliances were negotiated to enhance the family's position in the world, in terms of money, power, and political alliances. The Borgias were no different.

A clearly well-researched and well-thought out book, "The Borgias" also sheds light on the politics of the time, on the ever-shifting alliances, the struggles for power in which one day the Vatican was on top, the next Il Regno, the next someone else. It's Vatican history, "Italian" history (because there was, of course, no Italy as we know it, merely a collection of city-states, often at war with each other), European history.

If this book has any drawback, it is that Meyer occasionally falls into a trap similar to that of those he criticizes, but from the opposite standpoint. For instance, in trying to refute the allegation that Cesare Borgia and his siblings were the children of Rodrigo (Pope Alexander VI), he notes Lucrezia was said to have been born in Spoleto, but that her date of birth had also been found in a Valencian document. He then makes the assumption that the Valencian document, which he does not describe further, proves her to have been born in Spain (which, owing to the date we know Rodrigo left there, would mean she could not be his child). But why make that assumption?

Despite that, I would strongly recommend this book to a wide audience. It's quite readable, even to the non-scholar, but it would certainly repay reading by those with knowledge of the period as well.

And for another pro-Borgia book, one so over the top you can hardly believe it, but which will definitely increase your vocabulary, try Frederick William Corvo's Chronicles of the House of Borgia

Probably a subject that would get little scrutiny outside period historians if it were not for the series on cable. Explains how much of the "history" surrounding the family is more like speculation - and not even educated speculation. Very little writing survives on the family and less on the two main characters - the pope and his daughter. Yet there is much written recently - with very little basis. The Borgias: the Hidden History dispels this myth and explores what is really available.

Personally, I'm very interested in this time period of European history. From Luther to Henry VIII to Borgias, the period is rich with change and is important to the rest of Western Civilization.

This book adds to that rich history. Enjoyed!

My thanks to G.J. Meyer and Goodreads First Reads Giveaway for my copy of The Borgias: The Hidden History.

Although I enjoy reading about history, the Borgias family is one I had only a bit of knowledge about before reading The Borgias: The Hidden History and I found it enlightening with the details the author presented about this famous family. The times were violent, the power of the Catholic Church was strong and this powerful family according to a sketchy history was in the middle of the power struggle within the Church.

The Borgias: The Hidden History is well written and makes a good case for the family. It is highly interesting and I am glad that I have read it.

I have the author's "The Tudors" which I found to be a very good history about the successors to the British throne from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I. "The Borgias" was also a good read. It educated me about the origins of the family, for instance, they came from Spain. I wish the author had included a renaissance era map so I could see the geography of the various duchies in relation to Rome. These people lived in and shaped a world where it was truly survival of the fittest and the most cunning, men and women both. A marriage broker is a commodity trader, placing sons and daughters in strategic positions around Europe so families could amass power and solidify allegiances. I enjoyed this enough to also get the Audible version. For a novice who is just beginning to learn about this period, this is a good beginning.

I had always been interested in the history of the Borgias but had never read any books about them so for me their story is new and I can't compare it to other books about the Borgias.

It was a very enjoyable, fast paced read. My only problem was having to go back occasionally and reacquaint myself with various characters in the story because the names can cause you to confuse characters. My only previous knowledge of the Borgias was brief bits of information here and there that basically painted them as monsters. This book paints them as more sympathetic characters. I plan to read more books about the Borgias and see how the author's view jives with the others.

Highly recommended from some one with very little previous knowledge of the Borgias.

First the positive: Meyer writes in a light, breezy, effective style and is far from the dry dust of most academic histories. And his revisionist argument (that Cesare and Lucretia were not Pope Alexander's children and that the family was not as bad as they have been portrayed) is interesting if not always convincing.

Therein lies the problem. This is NOT an academic history. Source citations are mostly nonexistent making his claim that everyone else got it wrong at best questionable. In a popular, nonacademic history the lack of scholarly data makes some sense to me; few of Meyer's readers will care about such things but if he is going to disagree with almost everyone who has written before him, he should have some basis for doing so and I think he needs to tell us what that basis is. Moreover, at times he just gets sloppy in my opinion. While he is arguing that the Borgia's were a lot less evil than reported, he repeatedly, without much support calls the other tyrants of Italy "psychopaths" or "sociopaths" and at one point calls them "psychopaths and sociopaths" which is interesting considering that the two terms are within the limits of what we can know about 15th century warlords the same thing.

Whatever, it is an interesting read but certainly not great.

Before going into the book, I was well aware of the stories about the Borgia family. I've been interested in their history for years and have always been an ardent Lucrezia defender, having decided early on that the stories of her being a murderer, a poisoner, the most dangerous woman in Italy were utterly false. However, I've never doubted any of the stories about the rest of her family; after all, they've been repeated, over and over ad nauseum, for centuries, ever since Pope Alexander VI took the papal throne. So any book that claims to shed new light on an old story is of immediate interest to me. And, boy, was I blown away by this book! I will never be able to watch the Showtime original series The Borgias or read any other book (fiction or not) which features the Borgias the same way again.

In alternating chapters, Meyer tells the story of the Borgia family from their beginnings, when the very first Borja came out of Spain and made it good in Italy, interspersed with the history of the times, the places, and the people involved with this ever-changing pageantry. Yes, that's right, the Borgias or, as they're more properly known, the Borja-Lanzol family, were Spaniards, going part of the way to explain the wealth of stories about them. After all, foreigners, any foreigners, in Rome were treated as suspect. Therefore anything said about the Borgias, whether it concerned adultery, incest, fratricide, espionage, murder, or anything in between, was easily believed and easily exaggerated. However, as Meyer very rationally and thoroughly points out, most if not all of these tales are not only false, there's no way they could've ever been true. When all the misconceptions are cleared up, what we get is a new, fresh take on the history of the Borgias, one which illuminates their (yes) faults, but also their virtues, of which they did have a few. The end result is quite refreshing.

Meyer is not the first apologist (a word, Meyer points out, that doesn't mean that one is apologizing for someone's actions but is instead defending a position) to try and clear up the Borgia history. The first book to do so was written by the Italian Andrea Leonetti in an 1880 work entitled Papa Alessandro VI, in which Leonetti brought up the question of whether the opinion the world had held of Alexander for nearly four hundred years might, in fact, be wrong. Sadly, though the book drew some praise, it was never translated from the Italian and sank into oblivion. The next to try was Peter De Roo. In 1924 he published his massive Materials for A History of Pope Alexander VI, His Relatives and His Times, five volumes of documents found in archives across Europe, from Spain to Vienna, as well as in a number of Italian depositories, gathered over 30 years. Exhaustive in its scope, De Roo's work lays out conclusions which are completely at odds with nearly every aspect of the Borgia myth. Though some historians have referenced De Roo, those references are often rare, brief, and oblique, with De Roo's work often only noted, never commented upon. Sadly, De Roo never got to use his Materials to write a definitive biography of Alexander as he died less than two years after Materials was published. Then came Orestes Ferrara's The Borgia Pope in 1942, published first in Italian and then in English. As with its predecessors, it's been largely ignored and certainly had no impact on the immutable Borgia myth.

Despite the wealth of evidence proving the opposite of nearly every story told about the Borgias, why, then, do people keep repeating the same old tales? Simply put, the world likes their Borgias to be nasty, despicable, and rotten to the core, able to keep company with Caligula, Nero, Erzebet Bathory, Hitler, and others in the Cabal of Evil. No one wants to hear the truth when the lies are so much more entertaining and exciting.

Written in a scholarly yet still approachable voice, The Borgias: The Hidden History explodes the myth of the Borgias and should set the world on fire. Whether it will or not, whether it will be embraced and hailed or rejected and ridiculed, remains to be seen. For those who are unfamiliar with the Borgia family, or have gotten all they know from the TV show, this is the book of all books to read in order to clear up any misconceptions. Actually, it doesn't matter how familiar you are with the Borgia family, this is still the book of all books to read, if you're willing to look at an old story with new eyes.

If you are into medieval history or the history of the Vatican this book is a must read. The author has provided a chronological recollection of the papal period of 1450-1550's not just an account of the Borgia's. This is a really well researched book that looks at all the evidence for and against the supposed actions of this notorious family - and of all of the Popes of that period. This account leaves you questioning much of what we know from popular fiction and many history books in relation to the Borgia's. Whilst the book is an historical account it is so well written that it is easy to follow, flows and gives you a taste of the mystery and intrigue that surrounds the papacy, the Cardinals and the Borgia's in particular. Loved it.

As a big fan of the Borgias television series, I was immediately drawn to this book, and its project of reclaiming Rodrigo Borgia's reputation. I can't vouch for the scholarship, but I as a serious reader, I can attest that this is an intelligent, well-written and argued book, full of period color and characters. Sometimes non-historian authors that take on such topics come out with books that are overly breezy or thinly drawn, but that is not the case here. I think that for anybody who wants to know more of the history behind this extraordinary family, this book will be rewarding.

I can't remember the last time that I devoured a book as quickly and happily as I did G.J. Meyer's "The Borgias: The Hidden History." Not only has Meyer done a superb job of bringing the Borgia family to life, but he has masterfully put their lives into historical and social perspective. His sidebars into European politics and history and how they impacted and influenced how and why the Borgias did what they did are flavorful, informative and illuminating. For anyone interested in genuinely fun and intelligent writing, this book cannot be bettered.

The writer gives a realistic view of the Borgias. They were real people with faults, but not the people of legend. His reasons are credible and he makes a persuasive argument that their vilification is unjustified by stating real sources found in papers available from libraries and the Vatican. It's a good read and makes you grateful to be born in this century and this country. The four stars is because he says little about other interests Alexander II had than helping his nephew Cesare.

Without being as wordy as many of my very thoughtful co-reviewers, I have to say that this book was truly fascinating. Mr. Meyer's scholarship and attention to background material was very enlightening. Having read Christopher Hibbert's seventy year old history of the Borgias, I was aware that more research was in order. Revisionist? Definitely. However, this book about a family whose name has become synonymous with evil was long overdue.

I just finished listening to an audio version of this brilliantly researched and reasoned history of the Italian Renaissance and one of its most infamous families. If you are interested in historical biographies and think you have a firm understanding of the Borgias, you really need to get this book and prepare to be totally captivated. I will leave it there and now get on with buying this book to peruse in depth.

Meyer's "The Borghias" refuses to accept the conventional view that the Borghia familiy was the epitome of evil. Instead, the author finds that in general there is little contemporary evidende that the Borghias were any worse than their rivals.

Italy in that era was a dazzling, bewildering kaleidoscope of rivalries and changing alliances. The ally of today was likely to be the enemy of tomorrow, but through it all Meyer plots a clear and understandable course.

I read this book first and then his Tudor's book. In this book he mentions the black story of the Borgias as been repeated by many writers, but he never mention that he was one of them in his tudor's book.On pages 240-241 he writes something completely as what he wrote in this book. With this, he loose almost all the credibility that I had on him. I really feel cheated.
Both books are very good but I will take them as fiction and not biographies.

This book is smart, deep and detailed. If you love Renaissance-era history, you'll enjoy this history of the Vatican's most notorious family.

It's slow-goings in the early chapters as the elder statesmen if the Borgia clan migrate towards Rome and establish some familial supremacy. Names, dates and deeds can be confusing and overwhelming.

The first Borgia to become pope was Calixtus, a virtuous Borgia--the exception that confirms the rule--who mounted an army against the invading Turks, Turks that stole thousands of young boys who grew into ardent Moslem warriors. Thanks to heroic generals from Romania to Albania--given the credit they deserve, thanks to G.J. Meyer's book THE BORGIAS--the barbarians at the gates were defeated. Before and after the incredibly hard-working Rodrigo Borgia became Pope Alexander VI, his sexual peccadilloes--concerning both `'boys and girls, but mostly girls''--were largely dismissed as boys-will-be-boys joie de vivre. (Meyer's chapter entitled IL PAPA will keep you glued to your seat, such was the despicable history of many of these saint men.) Meyer's treatment of the Borgias--what they were supposed to have done or not done--is perfectly even-handed, very far way from authors who have Cesare in a hot tube (!!!) with a boy and Pope Alexander encouraging his son to perform insect on his sister by gently patting his behind.
Caro's fabulous life of LBJ, totaling so far around 3000 pages, makes Meyer's 430 a thin volume indeed in comparison, especially for this array of characters that absolutely defy the imagination. An example: In Christopher Hibbert's THE BORGIAS AND THEIR ENEMIES we read this: `'Cesar had fallen sick again of that illness of his. Now the flowers (as the syphilitic rashes were euphemistically known) are starting to bloom again.'' An anecdote among a 100,000 not in Meyer's book, one that Caro would not have missed. Hopefully some day another Caro will give the Borgias the space they deserve. Worst still: The death of Astori Manfredi, Prince of Faenza, at age 17, a boy described as the most beautiful in Italy (artists came from all around to paint him), was passed over with just a few words by Meyer, despite the fact that the boy had been imprisoned by Cesare (and was, moreover, the lad in the hot tub), then found drowned in the Tiber, bound to his young brother. All the rumors concerning his death were ignored by Meyer. My own books can be found on the store under Michael Hone.

This sweeping history of the Borgias strives to be fair to them. They still come off as not exactly the people next door. If you believe where there is smoke there is fire you may not be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt as the author does. Since I came to this book relatively uninformed about the Borgias the fact that I found Meyer's account here convincing may not be the greatest recommendation. I personally find the Tudors more interesting and easy to relate to--perhaps just because I know more about them. Here I sometimes felt lost amid all the unfamiliar names. Still, the book held my interest and learned from it.

Nonjudgmental toward and almost pro-slavery of Africans and Catholics by the Turks in Catholic Constantinople. In Chapter 2, the author is awe-struck by the Mohammedans' slavery practices set forth by the Turkish sultan Mahmet II "ingenious."

No negativity toward the brutality of the Turkish Mohammedans, and no sympathy for Catholics and Orthodox:

"Among the striking features of that culture were the pervasive and remarkably creative use of slavery and polygamy on a epic scale, royal fratricide as government policy, and ingenious ways of subject populations vastly more numerous than the Turks themselves. Slavery, so integral to the [Turkish] empire at its zenith that 1 in every 5 [Catholic] residents of Constantinople was officially in bondage, took such novel forms under the sultans that it becomes a major source of their strength. ... prisoners of war, especially the youngest of them, could be turned not only into useful fighting men but into fiercely loyal ones. This led to creating the system for recruiting talent into systematic abduction. [...] These were slaves with far more opportunities than the supposedly free people at the time. [...] [The Turks stole children from their parents.] This system only work; it worked brilliantly. The harvesting of children gave the Turks a force of so-called Jannisaries that it was one of the wonders of the age. [...] [The Turkish military were inventors, too!] The walls of Constantinople during the siege that ended in the city's fall, were reduced to rubble by huge stone balls fired by the Turks... The Turks trafficked in women as well. ... The Turks purchased children who were mutilated and later used as harem body guards - eunuchs.

Judgmental toward Catholics: "unspeakable savagery of"

"The bitter division that separated the Roman and Orthodox churches abetted the Ottomans [Islamic Turks]. It had begun with the unspeakable savagery with which the [Catholic] Fourth Crusade ... sacked Constantinople..."

This is a very readable book about the mess of politics in Renaissance Italy. The author makes a convincing case that many of the juicy stories of the Borgias depravity were nonsense. Reads like a good thriller and amazes with the intrigue and double dealing of the time.

Nonjudgmental toward and almost pro-slavery of Africans and Catholics by the Turks in Catholic Constantinople. In Chapter 2, the author is awe-struck by the Mohammedans' slavery practices set forth by the Turkish sultan Mahmet II "ingenious."

No negativity toward the brutality of the Turkish Mohammedans, and no sympathy for Catholics and Orthodox:

"Among the striking features of that culture were the pervasive and remarkably creative use of slavery and polygamy on a epic scale, royal fratricide as government policy, and ingenious ways of subject populations vastly more numerous than the Turks themselves. Slavery, so integral to the [Turkish] empire at its zenith that 1 in every 5 [Catholic] residents of Constantinople was officially in bondage, took such novel forms under the sultans that it becomes a major source of their strength. ... prisoners of war, especially the youngest of them, could be turned not only into useful fighting men but into fiercely loyal ones. This led to creating the system for recruiting talent into systematic abduction. [...] These were slaves with far more opportunities than the supposedly free people at the time. [...] [The Turks stole children from their parents.] This system only work; it worked brilliantly. The harvesting of children gave the Turks a force of so-called Jannisaries that it was one of the wonders of the age. [...] [The Turkish military were inventors, too!] The walls of Constantinople during the siege that ended in the city's fall, were reduced to rubble by huge stone balls fired by the Turks... The Turks trafficked in women as well. ... The Turks purchased children who were mutilated and later used as harem body guards - eunuchs.

Judgmental toward Catholics: "unspeakable savagery of"

"The bitter division that separated the Roman and Orthodox churches abetted the Ottomans [Islamic Turks]. It had begun with the unspeakable savagery with which the [Catholic] Fourth Crusade ... sacked Constantinople..."

This is a very readable book about the mess of politics in Renaissance Italy. The author makes a convincing case that many of the juicy stories of the Borgias depravity were nonsense. Reads like a good thriller and amazes with the intrigue and double dealing of the time.

Very interesting read. Mr. Meyer did a good job of helping me keep all the characters straight in a very tangled tale. So are the Borgia's the monsters that I was taught they were or are they typical for the times? I highly recommend this book.

Meyer is one of the best historians around - with a style that I love of following up many chapters with a background section/chapter on a specific issue covered earlier. This work on the Borgias is particularly I informative on Italy and the Papacy.

I love well written books about interesting historical figures. This one takes a prize. It reads almost as a historical thriller with popular believes about Borgias debunked, analysed in a different light, new historical facts given light, all on the rich background of scholarly research. A great combination of brains and entertainment.

I (thankfully) did not purchase this book but rented the e-book from my public library. I chose to read this author because I liked his book on the Tudor's. I had hoped for a similar writing style and treatment with the Borgia story but have been sorely disappointed. This book is much less readable than the Tudor book, it is more like reading a history textbook. Worse though, is that I am halfway through it and the Borgia's seem to be minor characters in the book-it is more about the wars and territorial feuds of the time. I understand the need to give some background to set context but half the book?! A better title would be something general about battles of 15th century Europe. Normally I would wait until I finished the book to write a review but I am not convinced I will finish this one. Very disappointing.

As a lover of all things Italian Renaissance and Borgia, I eagerly anticipated this new work - and was certainly not disappointed. I particularly liked the way the author wove background chapters to give the historical context as he moved through the Borgia family tree. At first I thought I would reject his apology of the Borgias, but he raised enough questions in my mind to make me wonder. A fun, informative, and eminently readable book.

Here is a scholar of the entire period of Renaissance Italy, who explains it well by explaining “civilization” as well as I have seen. And without taking any of the excitement or beauty from the scape, removes the moral graffiti heaped upon the Borjas by demonstrating the “temper of the times."

This book starts with a prologue in which a visiting Spanish bishop finds the tomb of the infamous Cesare Borgia inside one of his churches. He proceeds to destroy the tomb and moves the body and buries it on the road at the bottom of the church steps. Why did he do this? So that Cesare's bones would be "trampled on by man and beasts forever". This is pretty much the common view of the Borgia family even in our time. They were immoral thugs disguised as popes, they were murderers, incestuous adulterers clad in outward beauty which allowed them to beguile men, women, kings, and even members of their own family. They were almost seen as demonic by some, or at the least the very portrait of evil.

G.J. Meyer's new book seeks to find out the truth behind all the sensationalized rumors and legends that have grown up around the Borgias. And without saying it directly, he also wants to cash in on the hit Showtime series, The Borgias, much as he did with The Tudors tv show.

Meyers divides the book into 4 parts. The first focuses on Alonso Borgia, an old cardinal who was elected for two reasons. First, none of the major power brokers saw him as a threat since he had never really taken sides during his church career with any of the main papal, familial, or political factions of the time. Also, he was OLD. Alonso was 77 when he was elected as Pope Calixtus III! In 1455, that was WAY beyond the normal lifespan of the average man, so essentially he was living on borrowed time. Those with power in Rome believed that the Pope would be long dead before he could rock the boat. They were in for a big surprise when they found out that Alonso planned to be very active and started off the tradition of the Borgia Popes to try and unify all of Italy into one country instead of various competing city states who were constantly at war with one another.

Parts 2 and 3 focus on Alonso's nephew, Cesare Borgia, who later became Pope Alexander VI. Rodrigo was a extremely effective advisor and diplomat under his Uncle Alonso, but once he became Pope, his calculating nature and leadership abilities were diluted by nepotism on a grand scale uncommon even for that era in history when familial relations could make or break your career prospects. He also had to cement his power and restablish Papal rule over some very unruly territories that belonged to the Pope essentially in name only. All the while, he was also maneuvering members of his family into positions of power and royalty.

Part 4 chronicles the rise and fall of Cesare Borgia, Alonso's great-nephew. He was pretty much Alonso's warhammer, who was sent out to pacify all the Pope's enemies, whether through force, diplomacy, threat, or even murder. Cesare also set about carving up parts of Italy into a kingdom he himself could rule even after his great-uncle was dead. Things didn't end up working out like he had planned.

It's apparent very early on in this book that G.J. Meyer is writing an apologia for the Borgias. It seems like every murder or bad thing that the Borgias did, in Meyer's opinion, was justified, or done without the direct participation of the Borgias themselves. When the enemies of the Borgias do something morally wrong, they are EVIL, BAD PEOPLE. When the Borgias have someone killed, or betray an ally, there was no other option, or it's glossed over with the author stating that there is no direct evidence of Borgia involvement. Unfortunately, Meyer's main evidence that the Borgias were good people is the LACK of evidence that they were bad from people that worked with them. Just because their enemies said bad things about the Borgias and their friends said good things, Meyer asserts, their enemies MUST be WRONG and their friends MUST be RIGHT! How lamebrained and nonsensical can you get?

Meyer also makes assertions that are against what is commonly accepted fact. Namely, that Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia were in reality Alonso Borgia's KIDS by a mistress named Vanozza dei Cattanei, not the grandnephew and grandniece that Meyers claims they were! It's pretty incredible that Meyers makes these assertions. The only crime Alonso and Cesare seem to be guilty of is loving their family too much! The Borgias exist in a vacuum of benevolence surrounded by evil men and women wishing to do them in.

I guess when Meyer made the thesis of his book be that the Borgias really weren't that bad, he HAD to make them out to be the good guys, or else his book falls apart. One of the main themes of The Hidden History is that the Borgias were looking out for the good of all Italy, not just for themselves. That they wanted to strengthen it against foreign invaders from the Muslim world and the greedy monarchs of Europe. This argument falls flat as well, as the Borgias allied themselves with some of these very invaders to save their own skins or when it served to bolster their own power or familial interests.

One of the biggest weaknesses of this book and of the writer himself is that after almost every chapter, there are "Background" sections, almost like appendices that give you more info and history that wasn't in the chapters themselves. I never understood what the purpose was to include these sections. They were almost entirely written in dry, factual prose and I ended up skipping over them. To me, it almost seemed as if Meyer wasn't skilled enough to include parts of the backgrounds in the chapters or just couldn't be bothered to work it in. I mean, if it wasn't important enough to include in the chapters, why include it at all?

If you want the true story of the Borgias that is objective and historically accurate, I would steer clear of this book. If you want an entertaining account of the Borgias, I would also look elsewhere. It's obvious that Meyer was just trying to cash in on the current fad of Borgia interest and didn't try very hard to polish this rushed account.

History is written by Historians...in other words, don't believe everything you read or hear because nearly everyone has an agenda.

I was impressed by the Bibliography and if I was in better health, I would be inclined to read some of the sources that Mr. Meyer challenges, but I'm not. To be fair, Mr. Meyers has been published more than a few times for his historical accounts.

Furthermore, the writing itself is exquisite, better than some fiction writers, who are published.

However, I am responsible for writing a review of the book and though I am certain to be flamed by some, who find Mr. Meyers account more acceptable.

I would have been more comfortable if instead of calling it "The Hidden History" using another title such as, "The Borgias, an Alternative History" in the title. As I am a believer that the truth of a major historical figure is going to be at least somewhat accurate. In the introduction, Mr. Meyers takes on Burckhardt saying, "who in his long-revered "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy" accepts as true one outlandish anecdote after another." That's an intense allegation! He goes on to take on Catholic historian Ludwig Pastor, "whose "History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages fills forty fat volumes, evidently could see no point in even questioning the legend", referring to others that wrote about the Borgias. 40 Volumes, Ludwig Pastor certainly had access to a lot of records to produce such an extensive account. Now the Catholic church typically tries to keep things secret - just watch the news the last 5 years with all the sex scandals that were covered by Priest's abusing for 30 and 40 years remaining a secret; they have had plenty scandals in the past. In fact, many of the early Popes were wealthy landowners or powerful men that were sometimes married and often killed the current pope or had some assistance in early, suspicious deaths particularly in the first 500 years. If the Catholic church was willing to say Borgia was a cretin, I much more inclined to lean toward their view.

Most people think Hitler did horrible things; based on my reading, he was even more wicked than the main sources portray. I think this he has been a bit "sanitized" because so many other highly regarded people, would have been tainted by the telling of more complete version; plus many people have great difficulty accepting that such an ogre existed (just ask the Germans, who say that the Holocaust never happened). Yet, Bayer (formerly the company that makes your aspirin, lawn pesticides and fertilizers, manufactured the chemical gases for the first World War and used slave labor in the camps in World War 2, those who were unable to work died by their gas! Likewise, another worldwide co., going by a 3 letter acronym starting with an I, approached Hitler to efficiently maintain his records which included marking the people, who were imprisoned. Their machines made the Reich very efficient and it is known around the world even today after 120 years in technology (yet none of my friends employed there know this historical tidbit).

My point is that Mr. Meyers wouldn't have a potentially popular book if the title read, "Everything you've heard is true and worse", nor am I stating that Mr. Meyers is a fraud. As I read the story, parts just didn't ring true. It just seemed something is amiss. I wonder and ponder certain facts. It seems odd that Alonso Borgia was made a Bishop without having been ordained as a Priest, while this appears to be an award of service, you would think that the church would have at least ordained him first(even without credential or study) then give him the title of Bishop. Even if these were on the same day for appearance of propriety. However, I've not been steeped in Catholic history, so,this may not have been unusual at the time.

As Pope, one of the first things he tackles is the impending attack and further encroachment into Europe by Mehmed II. He nearly wiped out the treasury by taxing heavily the Orthodox church (saying they could keep their non-Roman clergy in return) leaving the Roman church without a tax but making appeal for financial support for this war. That doesn't seem fair but I wasn't there, from a European perspective this was a good thing for Christianity because of his aggression. Alonso seemed autocratic in general.

Likewise, I found his insistence of Pope Alexander's (the 3rd Borgia to rule) many female companions were only friends and that children attributed to him, quite unrealistically assigned as niece and nephews. We are all adults here, can anyone be that naive? There seems to be a general downplaying of certain events throughout the book that leads me to think that Mr. Meyers may be perceiving the Borgia family with rose-colored glasses.

As anything else, it is wise to consider other opinions on a matter. To accept anything as 100% is to be insular. Read and enjoy the writing style but don't accept it as the only font of truth.

I fully admit that I might have liked THE BORGIAS more if I had been in the proper mood to read it. However, I must also say that it wasn't the book I was expecting. From the summary and title, I expected a book on the Borgia family. But THE BORGIAS is not just a book about the Borgia family: it's a book about the history of Rome and Italy, the papal system, and a lot of other information.

Now, as a reader with a history background, I normally enjoy massive amounts of information. The more I learn, the better. But with this book, I just couldn't concentrate. I think it was due in part to the author's style, which I just couldn't get into. I felt like G. J. Meyer was trying to stuff in every single detail he learned while researching.

I made it to "Part Two: Rodrigo" before giving up. It took me about twelve hours to get through approximately 80 pages. To give a comparison, usually I can read a 250-300 page book in about two hours. I know a book like THE BORGIAS will take longer, but it shouldn't take that long.

I am giving THE BORGIAS two stars, even though I didn't finish it, because I think it IS a good book for the right reader in the right frame of mind. I'll probably try it again myself in the future, but for now, it just didn't work for me. If you're thinking about reading it, I recommend using the store's "Look Inside" feature to get a feel for the book.

The poor grammar rendered this book undreadable. I made it through a few pages but then had to put it down due to excessive run on sentences, poor structure, and missing commas. I'm about to put out an APB on all the missing punctuation now. I don't understand how this got past an editor.

I'm not a big fan of the author's rendition of the saga of the Borgiia family's rise and fall in Renaissance Italy. He seemed to be one-sided in his treatment of this thuggish family, depicting the members, one and all, as true examples of the best of the Renaissance, while at the very same time depicting all their contemporary antagonist as brutish, insane, or incompetent no counts. Case in point (and there are many throughout this book --to be sure) -- Caterina Sforza, the Tigress of Forli, is described by the author as a virago, who slaughtered her citizens in a fit of rage....hmmmm....these slaughtered citizens were the leaders of the city, who tried to stage a coup by killing her husband and attempting to wipe out her whole family, which was coming home from family outing. Meanwhile Alexander VI and his misbegotten family of nephews and niece (hahaha -- good one G. J. Meyer -- really his sons and daughter along with an assortment of family bastards) enjoyed a ten year reign of terror trying to kill off the heads of all the major family's of the Papal States and major Italian cities. Who is the bigger monster -- the Duchess of Forli or the Pope of Rome and his dysfunctional brood.
It's almost as if the author has staked out a contrarian position on the Borgias to sell his book. Sure, a few other writers throughout history have taken a similar stand, though not when two mini-series on cable TV are currently churning up vile stories about this ignoble family. Kind of makes economic sense to gin up a contrarian view in light of this fact. By the way, the author himself eludes to this in the latter part of his book, maybe not the economic angle, but surely that these producers and their experts are way off base dissing such shining examples of true Renaissance Men (and Woman -- who can leave out Rodrigo's and Cesare's beloved darling Lucrezia?).
Alas, really wish I hadn't wasted my money

I hate to say it because I was looking forward to reading this but in the end, this was a waste of money. Encumbered by banality and superfluous info, I kept hoping it would get better. By part 2 I gave up hope of that ever happening. The problem is the fascinating aspects are either short, forgotten or jam packed with unanswered questions and opposing conjectures. Dont bother. There are many other books better written and more entertaining