One of the first acts Pope Julius II took after succeeding Alexander VI was to seal-off the Vatican apartments used by his predecessor, a closure that lasted for more than 300 years.  Julius is purported to have said, “I will not live in the same rooms as the Borgias lived. He desecrated the Holy Church as none before.” [‘Borgia’ was Alexander’s Italian surname] Pope Alexander VI has been characterized as the ‘Sneaky Pope’, a ‘Devil Pope’, an ‘Evil Pope’, the ‘Nasty Pope’, and a ‘Corrupt Pope.’  And also, as the head of the original ‘Italian Crime Family’.  Some scholars even make the point that he was the unintentional prime cause behind the Protestant Reformation. 

NOTE: To be historically accurate, Julius actually succeeded Pius III who died after having served for only 26 days as the 215th Pope after Alexander’s death. 

Pope Alexander VI, detail of a fresco by Pinturicchio, 1492–94; in the Vatican

Rodrigo de Borja y Doms was born into a prominent and powerful Italo-Spanish noble family in a town near Valencia in 1431.  The family was well established in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church serving in a variety of administrative positions.  With the sponsorship of his uncle, Alonso de Borgia, the Bishop of Valencia, Rodrigo studied in Bologna and graduated as a doctor of ecclesiastical law.  When his uncle became Pope Callixtus III, Borgia was ordained successively as a Bishop, then as a Cardinal and finally as a vice-chancellor of the Church. Regardless of the position, or more likely because of his positions, he amassed extensive wealth, power and generally lived like a Renaissance prince. 

He openly acknowledged having a number of children with several mistresses and supported them with funds and privileges.  He legitimized four of his children who’s mother was a Roman noblewoman and they lived with him in his Church residences, including the Vatican.  He appointed and promoted family members and friends to high ranking positions in the Church, sold other positions to the highest bidder, and approved the practice of ‘simony’ [selling religious property and/or services]. 

On the other hand, Alexander was an effective orator and a skillful administrator.  He was also a competent military strategist which helped him, along with his negotiating skills, win several crucial battles against the Ottoman Turks, removed the French armies from Italian soil, and suppressed a couple of revolutionary Italian Princes.  And he was a patron of the arts and supported educational institutions.  He frequently hosted Raphael in his apartment at the Vatican, and convinced Michelangelo to create a set of plans for remodeling St. Peter’s Basilica.  He was instrumental in managing the improvements needed at the University of Rome and assisted in the founding of King’s College in Aberdeen, Scotland.  Around the same time Alexander was drafting the Papal bull to divide the world, he welcomed about 9,000 destitute Iberian Jews to the Papal States after they had been expelled from Spain. And again in 1497 and ’98 he offered safe passage to immigrating Jews who had been evicted from Portugal and Provence.

As with people in all stations of life, a Pope’s actions are complicated and sometimes contradictory.  Pope Nicholas V  appears to have been an upstanding and honest leader and yet issued some terrifying edicts,  While Alexander seems to have been a self-centered opportunist with a sense of superiority and yet did significantly good acts of religious and public service.  They each in their own way contributed essential elements to what became colonization practices that spanned centuries.

Primary Sources: (1) Francis Xavier Murphy; Emeritus Professor of Patristic Moral Theology, Academia Alfonsiana, Rome. (2) Natasha Ishak; Staff Writer, All That’s Interesting

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