My impression is that the Neil Jordan two season series on the life of the Borgias family uses some facts and then explores the characters according to what makes good TV. This is a high performance production with a top level cast headed by Jeremy (Brideshead Revisited) Irons as the first Borgia Pope. Joanne Whalley plays his former mistress and mother of his two sons and daughter, the infamous Lucrezia played by the comparatively unknown but gorgeous Hollie Granger. Learning that she is also in recently released Anna Karennia may make me change my mind about seeing the picture after a less than flattering review by Dr Kermode. The French Canadian Francois Arnaud plays the Machiavellian Cesare Borgia and David Oaks the weak other son, Juan. Sean Harris plays Cesare’s hitman and Colm Feore as the Cardinal Guiliano dela Rovere whose mission is get rid of the Pope and his family. Steven Berkoff plays Savonarola with the fabulous Our Friends in the North Gina Mckee as the clever and determined Caterina Sforza. Derek Jacobi played a cameo role in the first series as a fictitious Cardinal, who plotted against Alexander Borgia and is poisoned by Cesare.
The second season commenced with Alexander in full power with his daughter and her child home after the disastrous arranged marriage with the Sforza’s. Against his will Cesare, a warrior at heart, is forced to play the devoted son and Cardinal, and a kind of consigliore to the Pope who manages his role better than most Mafia bosses. In the Borgial Bull Alexander is tempted by a young artist who has disguised herself as a boy while his mistress is way and he decides to gain popular support by hold a pagan celebration in the city. While hunting he has found a horde of art dedicates to pleasure which he places on show in the Vatican thus alienating genuine Christians among the church hierarchy further.
The father of Lucrezia’s child has made his way to Rome in Paolo He is allowed to spend one night with her and to see her child with the help of her mother and Cesare on condition that he then leaves Rome after which he is killed by Juan. The opening two episodes set the scene for the first of the two main stores of the series. In The Beautiful Deception, King Charles of France has been held in Naples caught up in the plague that wracks the city and determined to destroy Alexander support by the Sforza’s and set on the sack of Rome with their superior cannons. It is here that Cesare perpetrates he great bluff in which he creates look alike Cannon which he arms the walls of the city and then rides out to parley with the King and Sforza to persuade them to by pass the city which they do. Relations between Lucrezia and her father reach a new low when she learns of her death of her lover and persuades her father to give the young man a Christian burial which he performs.
In Stray Dogs
the celebrations of the retreat of the French are marred when Cesare discovers nuns raped and slaughters by a group of front line fighters led by Giovanni Sforza and ruthless revenge becomes his main objective. Cardinal Sforza petitions the Pope to unite Italy against the French so the Pope and his son with the Cardinal go North leaving Lucrezia in charge of Rome. A foretaste of what is to come. She uses the opportunity to find out about the city and its poor and the way the Cardinals misusing their position, using brothels and directs funds to enhance their positions and families. With the help of Court ladies she plots to tackle the abuses of power blackmailing the Cardinals into providing funds.
With the defeat of the French the series then moves to deal with he threat posed by Savonarola and Caterina Sforza with the Borgia family unaware of the plot developing to poison the Pope by replacing his food and drink taster. The role of Girolamo Savonarola 1452 to 1498 is faithfully recorded although from portraits he was a lean man compared to the plump performance of Fiore. Savonarola could be described as a Christian fundamentalist and or puritan who set about preaching against the excess of the Medici family and Florence and persuaded the citizens to drive them out, with the mob killing those who refused conform to the new order with his longer term and easy target the Borgias. Florence was to become the new Jerusalem and centre for Christian renewal and rebirth. He refused to join or support Pope Alexander’s Holy league against he French.
As a young man he had taken the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience of the Dominican order and almost as soon as he was educated he commenced to teach ethics, logic, philosophy and government and from this he became a travelling preacher seeking reform until in 1490 he was brought back to Florence where he commenced to make his criticisms of the of powerful ruling classes in Italy, particular the Papacy. He had his critics and in the series Cesare Borgia joins forces with Machiavelli in attempting to expose the limitation of man described as incompetent, ill prepared and an unarmed prophet in his great work of the black art of powers, The Prince, which I have a copy as well as a biography on its author. In the series the Pope visits Florence and discusses the threat poses by Savaronola with the Medici Family and Machiavelli, who subsequently assist Cesare with info and advice.
The suggestion is that the Pope first used Savonarola as a means of getting rid of the power of the Medici and their banking success and then developing a plan to get rid of the prophet when he refused to accept the overall authority of his Holiness. He denounces him and then excommunicates and eventually the man is brought to Rome tried, and burned. With the help of Machiavelli Cesare persuades the cleric to accept a test of fire himself after witnessing the burning of a woman as witch because she dared to disagree with the orthodoxy being enforced by the mob. Convinced of his righteousness Savonarola agrees but when he is forced to back from the flame the mob realises he is human and not a God and turn away from him enabling the Borgias to deal with him without an insurrection.
It is in the fifth episode of the 10 The Choice that the series gathers a momentum with Cesare sent to persuade the Sforza to also yield their allegiance to him. He tells Caterina she must come to Rome and kneel to his father or she will be brought in chains to him. When she refuses he seizes the opportunity to kill her brother the husband of Lucrezia, carrying out his promise to bring the heart of the man to her for the way he treated her. He also has a brief affair with Caterina although after killing her brother he has to take flight. This episode also shows Savonarola giving his support to those planning to assassinate the Pope although I do not think this is based on fact.
In Day of Ashes we learn how Alexander is to be assassinated as a pure boy is chosen to be trained. He is persuaded to take the very poison, cantarella which Della Rovere had survived and he persuades the young man to take repeated doses to establish immunity. It also at this point that the rivalry between the two sons begins to change into open resentment and conflict. From the outset Cesare was the warrior with brains who never wanted to be a priest, assassin or diplomat. His brother on the other wanted to be the warrior, to exploit the position and power gained from his father and to seek pleasure wherever it could found.
He had been sent off to Spain and on the return is again put in charge of the Papal army and using some of the money stolen from the Medici who tried to take abroad to hide the Pope agreed he should take the city of Caterina Sforza in the 7th episode the Siege of Forli. he captures her son, tortures the boy and threatens to the kill the young man if she does not yield. She proclaims that she will produce more sons but will not yield. She also has arranged for assistance and in the subsequent battle Juan is wounded and runs off believing that his hostage has been killed and there is no one to reveal the truth of what happened.
Cesare gains knowledge of what happens and also the boy who survives. He releases the boy to his mother as a gesture seeking peace and then ensures that his father learns he truth of his other sons attempt deception. Juan is wracked with pain from his injury and has been diagnosed with syphilis
When Cesare admitted to his father that he had killed Lucrezia’s former husband, Alexander determined that he would marry his daughter once more to achieve a new alliance. This time he would leave his daughter to make the choice guided by her mother ands a succession of suitors arrived in Rome and in Truth and Lies her mother advises that she should marry one suitor because of his position and use to the family while taking his artist brother as her lover who is her preference. In World of Wonders having slept with the brother before any wedding the betrothed announces to the Pope that he cannot go ahead with the marriage because his brother wants to marry the girl. Both leave Rome. Juan takes opium to relieve his pain. Faced with the deteriorating behaviour of the brother who insist on clinging to his position as head of the Papal army Cesare and his aide track him to the opium den and lure him to a bridge where he is killed and dumped into the river
In the final episode of series Savonarola is tortured into a confession which he refuses so one is forged and he is then burned at the stake. When Juan body is discovered the Pope refuses to sanction his burial until the killer is found and this prompts Cesare into confessing his guilt and pleads for forgiveness. Alexander is full of remorse at he way he treated both his son and buries Juan in the grounds with his bare hands saying mass over him. Meanwhile Cesare is hold a dance party to mark the decision of Lucrezia who has accepted a suitor but makes he comments about dancing on the grave her brother. As father and his remaining son talk over what has happened they take wine which has been poisoned and the carefully planted new taster, after the trusted Cardinal with the task has been murdered, appears to die along with the Pope but we are left with the uncertainty and I was struck with the similarity between this series ending and that of George Gently covered yesterday.
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