The Borgia family was a noble Spanish lineage that played a significant role in Italy during the fifteenth and the early sixteenth centuries. The most famous of its members—Rodrigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI), Cesare Borgia, and Lucretia Borgia—attracted the attention of Voltaire and the great novelists Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas. The legend of the Borgias is full of sensational plots about the most terrible crimes committed by this family—murders, robberies, oath-breaking, and incest.
Cesare Borgia—Duke of Valentinois—unfailingly appears in these stories as the hero of the sword and poisoned wine.
The renowned master of historical prose, Rafael Sabatini, creates a vivid, complex portrait of Cesare Borgia, showing him as an extraordinary person in the attempt to subdue and unite entire regions of Italy. Cesare Borgia’s political activity was highly valued by his contemporary Niccolò Machiavelli, the Secretary of State of the Florentine Signoria, whom the Duke served as the model for his `The Prince`—the book that immortalized the name of the great Florentine forever.