The Borgias

by Paul Strathern

  One of the magnificent halls in the Borgia Apartments, with its distinctive Spanish floor tiling.

  Niccolò Machiavelli, who would act as Florentine envoy to the court of Cesare Borgia during his third Romagna campaign.

  The fundamentalist friar Girolamo Savonarola, who took over Florence and defied Alexander VI.

  The fortress at Nepi, one of the Borgia strongholds outside Rome.

  Alfonso d’Este, the heir to the dukedom of Ferrara, who became Lucrezia Borgia’s third and final husband.