Alexander VI Took Papal Corruption to its Pinnacle
Rodrigo Borgia (1431 – 1503) was pope from 1492 until his death. He was perhaps history’s most brazenly corrupt Holy Father, and did not bother with even the pretense of a fig leaf to cover his venality. He openly sold church offices, as well as indulgences to the wealthy. Unconcerned about his vows of celibacy, he openly acknowledged having fathered nine illegitimate children, including four with his live-in mistress. He also reportedly had an incestuous affair with his own daughter – when she was not busy having incest with her brother.
He was born near Valencia, Spain, into the Borgia family, a powerful ecclesiastical dynasty. Nepotism was the norm in those days, so when Rodrigo Borgia’s uncle became Pope Callixtus III in 1455, he ordained his nephew a deacon, then made him a lay cardinal. Soon thereafter, he was made vice chancellor of the Catholic Church, at age twenty five. Nepotism got Rodrigo a leg up, but he was a capable man in his own right, and continued rising through the Church hierarchy after his pope uncle’s death.
By the 1490s, he had served under five popes, and amassed considerable administrative experience, wealth, and influential connections. When the papal throne became vacant in 1492, he put those assets to good use, and bribed a majority of the College of Cardinal into electing him pope. Taking the name Alexander VI, he transformed the papacy into a nepotistic kleptocracy for the benefit of his family.
This pope was highly unpopular with the devout, because he made no pretense of being religious. He threw lavish parties that often degenerated into drunken orgies. One of them, which went down in history as the “Banquet of Chestnuts”, involved the hiring of fifty prostitutes, who danced with the guests naked. Chestnuts were then strewn around, and the naked hookers crawled on hands and knees to pick them up. Then a competition was announced to see which guest could have the most sex with the prostitutes, with servants keeping score of each man’s orgasms.
Alexander VI openly carried on with his mistresses before and after becoming pope, and acknowledged the resulting illegitimate children. He arranged dynastic marriages for his offspring, dipping into Church coffers to splurge on lavish weddings for his bastards. The pope also used his daughter Lucrezia, with whom had an incestuous affair, to snare wealthy and powerful notables. He had her seduce those whom he deemed useful, married her off to them, and when Lucrezia’s husband was of no further use, the pope arranged the dissolution of the marriage. The apples did not fall from the tree when it came to this pope’s children, and they too were notoriously corrupt and venal.
He openly sold church positions to the highest bidders, and when his lavish lifestyle and reckless spending drained Church coffers, he turned to the selling of indulgences – like Monopoly’s “Get Out of Jail Free” cards, but for hell instead of prison. He made the name “Borgia” a byword for corruption, nepotism, and libertinism, which were the hallmarks of his pontificate. Alexander VI’s brazen corruption was not just gossip fodder: it had a huge historical impact, and set in motion a backlash that would culminate in the Protestant Reformation.