Review: Cesare & Lucrezia Borgia by Samantha Morris

Synopsis: Myths and rumour have shrouded the Borgia family for centuries - tales of incest, intrigue and murder have been told of them since they themselves walked the hallways of the Apostolic Palace. In particular, vicious rumour and slanderous tales have stuck to the names of two members of the infamous Borgia family - Cesare and Lucrezia, brother and sister of history's most notorious family. But how much of it is true, and how much of it is simply rumour aimed to blacken the name of the Borgia family?

In the first ever biography solely on the Borgia siblings, Samantha Morris tells the true story of these two fascinating individuals from their early lives, through their years living amongst the halls of the Vatican in Rome until their ultimate untimely deaths. Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia begins in the bustling metropolis of Rome with the siblings ultimately being used in the dynastic plans of their father, a man who would become Pope, and takes the reader through the separate, yet fascinatingly intertwined, lives of the notorious siblings. One tale, that of Cesare, ends on the battlefield of Navarre, whilst the other ends in the ducal court of Ferrara. Both Cesare and Lucrezia led lives full of intrigue and danger, lives which would attract the worst sort of rumour begun by their enemies.

Drawing on both primary and secondary sources Morris brings the true story of the Borgia siblings, so often made out to be evil incarnate in other forms of media, to audiences both new to the history of the Italian Renaissance and old.

A fine edition to add to the many books tackling these infamous siblings - in both fact and fiction - see my 2011 blog post - A Bundle of Borgias.

Morris make a poignant remark: "... now, as throughout history, people love a good gossip ...", and like us today, they "... want stories that both disgust them and draw them in ...". In their own time, Cesare and Lucrezia are the equivalent of today's Kardashians or Osbornes. 

Delving into the family history from its Spanish roots, Morris provides the reader with a concise background of the family including Rodrigo's rise to the Papal throne up until the siblings draw final breath. But the focus here is on the two siblings - Cesare and Lucrezia - as opposed to a complete history of all Borgias. In this easy to read and well presented tome, all the main events are covered off - we are not bogged down in unnecessary detail so readers new to this topic will have no trouble at all keeping pace. For me, I love the Borgias, so much of this was well worn and familiar ground.

Gossip and hearsay were the weapons of the day that were used to destroy reputation - not only powerful, but also long lasting that like a series of chinese whispers, people begin to accept them as truths using that old adage "no smoke without fire" to justify such. And we are more than accustomed to history being written by the victors -as poor old Richard III can attest.

It is easy to forget that what is unseemly to our modern view and sensibilities was very much the norm - here, family is so important, that it is not strange at all to discover that Cesare and Lucrezia were close - afterall, it was the Borgias against the world - who else would they turn to and trust but one of their own.

Morris finishes by taking the reader through the various modern day adaptions of the Borgia story - from film and television, to game and books. Having just taken possession of yet another book on the Borgias (Paul Strathern's The Borgias), Morris' book will also find a home on my "Borgia" shelf in my personal library. 

Review: The German Client by Bruno Morchio

Synopsis: Private investigator Bacci Pagano can’t resist taking the bait when his new client dangles a check with too many zeros. He should have known that where there’s bait, there’s always a hook.

In a hospital corridor, Bacci Pagano is keeping watch over Jasmìne Kilamba. If she lives, her testimony will shatter a notorious human trafficking ring. Seemingly out of nowhere, he is approached by an elderly German named Kurt Hessen who is searching for his Italian half-brother. Despite his better judgment, Pagano accepts the job. So many things, good and evil, happened when the Nazis occupied Genoa in 1944, what did it matter now? But it matters very much to someone and Pagano finds himself plunged into a world of old secrets and new lies in this wartime thriller where the the bill for the sins of the past has come due . . . with interest. 

The novel is set in Genoa, in the industrial (working class) suburb of Sestri Ponente - in both time frames. What was life really like for those who endured the wartime conditions under both the Italian Fascists and Germans.

When Mussolini was removed from power in 1943, Italy signed the Armistice of Cassabile, ending its war with the Allies. However, German forces shortly succeeded in taking control of northern and central Italy, creating the Italian Social Republic (RSI), with Mussolini installed as leader after he was rescued by German paratroopers. The Germans, often helped by Fascists (Blackshirts), committed several atrocities against Italian civilians and troops. As result, the Italian Co-Belligerent Army was created to fight against the RSI and its German allies, while other Italian troops, loyal to Mussolini, continued to fight alongside the Germans in the National Republican Army. 

For the people living under this regime, brutality (including assault, imprisonment, torture and death), sacrifice, guilt and fear, oppression, betrayal and collaboration, hunger and rationing was commonplace. Many found work in the industries geared towards to the war effort in order to supplement their meagre resources - 1944 would see an incredibly harsh winter and fuel supplies were non-existent. People did what they could to survive. One of Morchio's character laments that "... as long as the war lasts, no one has the luxury of shame .."  

However, it wasn't long before civilians were being rounded up and sent off to work in Germany; others just "disappeared". And as resistance grew and more people joined the partisans, the retaliation by the occupying forces increased in its repressive brutality. The published order by the German Commandant, General Kesselring, was that for every German killed by partisans 10 Italians selected at random would be shot. 

The Italian Communist Party was also seen as a counter to the prevailing fascism - their task was to:

• attack and annihilate in every way officers, soldiers, material, deposits of Hitler's armed forces;
• attack and annihilate in every way people, places, properties of fascists and traitors who collaborate with the occupying Germans;
• attack and annihilate in every way war industries, communication systems and everything that might help to war plans of Nazi occupants.

Of the Italian Resistance Groups, the Gruppi di Azione Patriottica ("Patriotic Action Groups") or simply GAP, established small cells whose main purpose was to unleash urban terror through bomb attacks against fascists, Germans and their supporters. However, another of their tasks was the "elimination of enemies especially heinous", such as torturers, spies and provocateurs. They operated independently in case of arrest or betrayal of individual elements. In Morchio's story, the Patriotic Action Group (PAG) is the equivalent.

On April 26 Genoa fell, with 14,000 Italian partisans forcing the city's surrender and taking 6,000 German soldiers as prisoners.  Many veteran partisans today often deny that a civil war took place in Italy during World War II. However, a clear and simple version of events is not possible as many people made sacrifices to pursue their goals, aspirations and ideals.

When a dying Professor from Germany - Kurt Messen - seeks out Bacci Pagano, the investigator is forced to dig deep into the long concealed wartime memories of family and friends in order to find some semblance of truth and help reunite lost siblings. 

From this point onwards, the narrative alternates back and forth from 1944 to modern day, with Pagano's in the first person, and that of the partisan Tilde, in the third person. But nothing is ever that simple.  With little to go on and brick walls going up left, right and centre, Pagnano, distracted by the brutal assault of girlfriend Jasmine, must find answers before time runs out (for the dying Professor).  

When speaking with one of the old partisans, Bacci muses: "... I'm starting to think that there's something really dirty behind all this and your terrified that it will all come out, even after all these years .."

Long held secrets are slowly being teased out until we reach the final denouement - and for Pagano, things finally make sense.

This is a great read. Originally entitled "Rossoamaro", this is the sixth in a series of elevn (or twelve), and the first one I head read. Whilst not fully conversant with the background of the character Bacci Pagano, there is enough here to weave a wonderful tale. And - of course - make you want to seek out more in the series!

See also:

The Guardian - A House In The Mountain (review)

The Beauty and the Terror by Catherine Fletcher

From The Guardian: 

The Renaissance in Italy was an era of terror and oppression more than beauty – but is its great art complicit in injustice? Should we rethink the Mona Lisa’s smile?

The historian Catherine Fletcher has a well-deserved reputation as a specialist in 16th-century skulduggery and intrigue. In Our Man in Rome (2012) her subject was Gregorio Casali, a wily Italian fixer who served as Henry VIII’s ambassador at the papal court during the crisis of the king’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon. In The Black Prince of Florence (2017) she recounted the brief and lurid career of Alessandro de’ Medici, the illegitimate son of a Medici duke and a Moorish maidservant, who jockeyed to power as the first hereditary ruler of Florence, married a daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, and was murdered in the course of an adulterous liaison at the age of 26.

These are lively, well-researched books built round an interestingly dodgy central character. 

Her latest offering, The Beauty and the Terror, has a much larger canvas, covering a whole sweep of 16th-century Italian political and cultural history. She begins in the 1490s – an exciting but deeply turbulent decade: the “discovery” of the Americas by Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci, the French invasion of Lombardy, Girolamo Savonarola’s “bonfire of the vanities” in Florence, Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of The Last Supper in Milan, the election of the libertine Borgia pope, Alexander VI.

read more here @ The Guardian

Penn library will return 9th-century documents found to have been stolen from Italian archive

From The Inquirer:

The University of Pennsylvania has voluntarily agreed to return two ancient parchment documents to an Italian archive from which they had been stolen, apparently in the 1990s, according to a formal stipulation filed in federal court in Philadelphia last month.

The heist was the work of an unknown thief and happened years before the papers surfaced at Penn.

The documents, which record land transactions in the 820s in southern Italy, were acquired in the late 1990s by the late collector Lawrence J. Schoenberg, who bestowed his collection of manuscripts and books on the university in 2011.

The Schoenberg Collection at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, consisting of about 300 separate items, is particularly rich in medieval and Renaissance books and manuscripts.

read more @ The Inquirer