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Dec 15 - Dec 22,2002 |
The Borgias Between Legend and Art
Roman exhibition celebrates controversial family which helped bring in Renaissance
Originally Published: 2002-11-24
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Pope Alexander II
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Centuries after their deaths, with their alleged misdeeds so far behind us, the Borgias still spur debate. This time the controversial family forms the subject of a current exhibition in Rome, at Palazzo Ruspoli, that will close on February 23, 2003. The title is, understandably, I Borgia ("The Borgias").
Machiavelli celebrated their diplomatic ability and their effective command strategies; Guicciardini criticized them harshly; Savonarola publicly decried their dissolute behaviour. Many artists of the time exalted their virtues or attacked their vices. This exhibition contributes to reconstruct the atmosphere of Italy's Renaissance, "beautiful and dramatic in its political, artistic, religious and cultural aspects, packed with tragedy and passion, subversion and power struggles, wickedness and holiness, humanistic paganism and mystic religiosity." The much-despised Borgia family is not seen simply as exemplary evil (having the author of a libel about their family crimes arrested, and his tongue and right hand cut), but as men and women "able to cultivate civilization and progress."
In any case, this was one of the most powerful dynasties in Italian history, for centuries the symbol of unbridled nepotism and openly displayed corruption. And yet, under their Papal rule there was an exceptional vivacity in arts and letters, an unparalleled phenomenon in European history. This was the beginning of the Renaissance, the golden century of Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Bramante, Cellini, Antonello da Messina, Mantegna, Raphael, Dürer, Ariosto, Bembo, Galileo, Copernicus.
The Borgias, coming from Catalonia, kept many splendid customs that derived from their land of origin. Two Borgias became popes. The first, Alonso Borgia, born in Jątiva (near Valencia) in 1378, assumed the papal name of Callistus III and distinguished himself by opposing the Turkish advance in Europe. His grandson, Rodrigo Borgia, born in 1431, was elected Pope as Alexander VI in 1492, a fundamental date for Europe and the rest of the world. That was the year America was discovered, Lorenzo the Magnificent died, expansionistic policies were enacted, and the central role of cities in the delicate balance of Italian politics faced a crisis.
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