Preview

Access a growing selection of included Audible Originals, audiobooks, and podcasts.
You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
Audible Plus auto-renews for $7.95/mo after 30 days. Upgrade or cancel anytime.

Rise and Fall of the Borgias

By: William Landon, The Great Courses
Narrated by: William Landon
Try for $0.00

$7.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $16.00

Buy for $16.00

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Publisher's summary

Since its rise to the highest ranks of power in Renaissance Europe, the Borgia family has developed a scandalous reputation. While they were indeed ostentatious, calculating, worldly, cruel—and even, occasionally, murderous—listeners may be surprised to find that the Borgias were not terribly different from other powerful and ambitious families of their day. So why has history set them apart as one of the most corrupt and reviled families in history?

In the Rise and Fall of the Borgias, listeners will spend 10 revealing lectures untangling the web of rumors, speculation, and historical embellishment from what is actually known about the infamous Roman family. With Dr. William Landon, listeners will explore the historical context that helped the Borgias make their fortune and better understand how they could be both magnanimous and ruthless, pious and morally suspect.

The story of the Borgias is rich with intrigue, even without the fictional enhancement it has received from the numerous films, novels, and television shows that have been created based on the family’s notoriety. Dr. Landon introduces listeners to the major players and lays bare their machinations to reach the highest offices of church and state. Were their exploits as salacious as listeners have been led to believe? Did they manipulate the papacy for their own gain? Are the rumors of incest, bribery, political assassinations, and other morally questionable behaviors true or the stuff of historical gossip?

As listeners explore these and other rumors surrounding the Borgias, they will pull back the curtain on the historian’s craft and see how the story of this Renaissance dynasty has been shaped over time and how new research and a healthy dose of skepticism has allowed us to get a little closer to the truth—without losing any of the drama.

©2019 Audible Originals, LLC (P)2019 Audible Originals, LLC.

Our favorite moments from Rise and Fall of the Borgias

Lecture 1, Chapter 2 from Valencia to Rome the Borja Become the Borgia
  • Lecture 1, Chapter 2 from Valencia to Rome the Borja Become the Borgia
Rumors circulate about Cesare Borgia
-0.00
Lecture 3, Chapter 4 Cardinal Borgia Becomes Pope Alexander VI
  • Lecture 3, Chapter 4 Cardinal Borgia Becomes Pope Alexander VI
"Rodrigo badly predicted how the new Pope would act"
-0.00
Lecture 8, Chapter 9 Cesare Borgia and Niccolò Machiavelli
  • Lecture 8, Chapter 9 Cesare Borgia and Niccolò Machiavelli
Machiavelli praises Cesare Borgia
-0.00
  • Lecture 1, Chapter 2 from Valencia to Rome the Borja Become the Borgia
  • Rumors circulate about Cesare Borgia
  • Lecture 3, Chapter 4 Cardinal Borgia Becomes Pope Alexander VI
  • "Rodrigo badly predicted how the new Pope would act"
  • Lecture 8, Chapter 9 Cesare Borgia and Niccolò Machiavelli
  • Machiavelli praises Cesare Borgia
.

About the Professor

Dr. William Landon is Professor of European History at Northern Kentucky University. He received his MSc and PhD in History, with an emphasis on the life and works of Niccolò Machiavelli, from the University of Edinburgh.

An international authority in the fields of Machiavelli studies, the Renaissance, and the history of ideas, Dr. Landon is also a 2017 recipient of a National Science Foundation Grant. He has published two books: Politics, Patriotism and Language: Niccolò Machiavelli’s "Secular Patria" and the Creation of an Italian National Identity; and Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi and Niccolò Machiavelli: Patron, Client, and the Pistola fatta per la peste/An Epistle Written Concerning the Plague. He is also the presenter of a 24-lecture series on Machiavelli’s The Prince, produced by The Great Courses. Alongside his professional life as a historian, Dr. Landon is a classically trained painter, sculptor, a pianist, a lover of literature and music, and the co-owner/operator of a small organic farm.