Before becoming pope, Rodrigo Borgia spent 35 years as a Vatican kingmaker
Rodrigo Borgia did not wait for the papacy to wield power. Named vice-chancellor of the Church in 1457, one of its richest and most influential posts, he held it for 35 years, casting deciding votes in successive conclaves to install friendly popes. In 1492 he finally took the throne himself as Alexander VI.
He was born Roderic de Borja around 1431 in Xativa, in the Kingdom of Valencia, and his family name was later Italianised as Borgia. His rise began with his uncle. At 14 he became a cathedral sacristan in Valencia, and after that uncle was elected Pope Callixtus III in 1455, Rodrigo was made a cardinal and, following a successful mission to quell a revolt in Ancona, vice-chancellor. Such family appointments were typical of the era. He studied law at Bologna and graduated with glowing praise.
His deal-making reached well beyond Rome. Sent to Spain as papal legate, he approved the dispensation that allowed Ferdinand of Aragon to marry his second cousin Isabella of Castile, a union critical to forming a unified Spain, and the couple made him godfather to their first son. He also negotiated peace between Castile and Aragon, winning Ferdinand's lasting favour for the Borgia family.
As pope, his bulls of 1493 confirmed Spanish rights in the New World after Christopher Columbus's voyage the year before. His foreign policy aimed chiefly at the best possible terms for his family, and during the second Italian war he backed his son Cesare Borgia as a mercenary commander for the French king.
That family was the heart of his notoriety. Alexander openly acknowledged fathering several children by mistresses, and the name Borgia became shorthand for libertine living and nepotism. Even his lineage is tangled: one historian, G. J. Meyer, suggests some of the children linked to him may have been nephews and nieces through a shared relative. Peter de Roo's flattering summary of contemporary accounts describes him as dark-eyed, robust and so steeped in scripture that his speeches sparkled with quotations. He died in August 1503, still one of the most controversial of Renaissance popes.
Source: Pope Alexander VI
