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A portrait of one of the most famous—and criminal—noble families of the Renaissance written by the author of The Godfather .
Mario Puzo reinvented action fiction and brought to the literary world the excitement and intrigue of an underworld filled with gangsters and heroes of questionable morals. Before his death in 1999, the Cosa Nostra 's most faithful minstrel—whose novels, such as The Godfather , were also immortalized in film—decided to trace the origins of the Mafia to one of the most rebellious families in Italian history. In The Borgias , Puzo follows the trajectory of the 15th-century criminal clan, a real family, but with character traits worthy of the fictional Corleones.
Puzo spent fifteen years building the plot of this sometimes slippery, but always malignant and deeply political family. The story begins with Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia becoming the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church, Charles VI, by manipulating the papal elections of 1492. He then moves to the Vatican, accompanied by his lover and children: the simple and despised Jofre, the irascible and jealous Juan, the beautiful and determined Lucrezia—the most famous of the Borgias—and the warrior Cesare. The latter two were involved in an incestuous relationship that scandalized society at the time.
Determined to establish his own dynasty, Rodrigo controls his offspring with an iron fist and an iron will. He names his eldest son Cesare—a personal friend of Machiavelli and the inspiration behind his Prince—a cardinal. But Cesare has a soldier's blood and yearns to lead the pope's army in the conquest of central Italy.
The Borgias is a central theme of Rodrigo's appetite for power, wealth, and women. An appetite rivaled only by his unhealthy love for his own family. Rodrigo consolidated his power through a vast network of criminal alliances, which gave rise to the great Mafia family immortalized centuries later by Puzo himself. The Borgias is a gripping historical novel, a symphony filled with discordant notes: love and pride, betrayal, hatred, and murder. A portrait of the origins of organized crime that deserves to be among the best of Mario Puzo's career.
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