#Cesar Gandia

[blorbosexterminator]

Gandia character study fic? 👀 Please say more about it!

Happy to!

The one-shot chronicles most of his life, from early childhood to his death in the bank. The first half of the story is mainly chronicled through the summers he spent during his childhood in their vacation home in the Canary Islands and particularly through his relationship with a very close friend on the island. Their relationship is one of the most interesting parts of the story to me. But his father and mother, the complex relationship Gandia had with both, and their group of friends also play a big enough role.

Essentially, it starts with him as a relatively normal child (relatively) absorbing the horrible fascist culture around him and his military-man father growing up. And how he started becoming an active participant in it, growing more violent the more he's rewarded for his violence.

I really hope to return to it soon.

[lucreziagiovane]

ok we talked too much about showtime's the borgias, cesare/juan's cain and abel parallels, the murder of juan, and how the fratricide's aftermath affected the depiction of cesare's story. but can we now talk about the real historical cesare and how much he adored juan, despite his flaws? the fact is, even when he scolds him and shows his outright disbelief in him in their letters to each other, he does it with calmness, affection, and a sense of humor? when juan was appointed as the papal army leader, cesare's response letter to juan was delightful, specifically that part when he was like, "i am all the more happy for the very great love i have for you." and the fact he signs his letter to him with "from your brother who loves you as he loves himself" (which was used in a negative context in the borgias), while juan signs his letter to cesare with "from your obedient brother, duke of gandia." cesare was never condescending to juan and he had never reprimanded him. in fact, he has always gently guided him into behaving better with a direct tone.

after juan's sudden assassination, it wasn't just their father who fell into a paroxysm of grief. cesare was also affected, as he became too bitter and anguished. the untimely fate of his brother caused him such a psychological complex for the rest of his life that he became the cruelest man in italy, but his state became troubled. especially after he inherited a position that was previously held by his brother before his violent death, which caused him to have dark premonitions and anxieties about suffering a similar fate.

there's also an interesting line from gustavo sacerdote's (an italian essayist) biography, in one of his lines, there are moments about cesare's manners and methods toward his family: "the letter from cesare borgia is also interesting from another side. it is one of the few pieces of writing from his private and family correspondence that have come down to us; [...]we want to stick to the words contained in it, the fraternal love that flows from it, from the first to the last word, shows us an affectionate, effusive cesare, full of tenderness for his younger brother, very different from the grim borgia, which from history usually appears before our eyes."

[brimstone-girl]

Reading my Lucrezia book

and the author goes on all the time about how beautiful Cesare is and how literally everyone thinks he is beautiful and gorgeous and charismatic

and then she gets to Juan and it very like

…duke of gandia

gremlin boy …

not as good as cesare fyi

I have to be honest it is a bit funny ..oh Juan

[meariliyn]

[corvidcantina]

It's a beautiful day in the Bank of Spain, and you're a horrible security guard

[circlesofbone]

[dwellordream]

“Unlike the majority of sixteenth-century women who worked as silk-weavers, butter-makers, or house servants, Vannozza Cattanei (1452 [?]–1518) was exceptional, as she owned a business in Renaissance Rome, a category of work that, according to Alice Clark in Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century, was the least open to women. Thus, Cattanei, better known as the lover or mistress of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), achieved what few women of her time could: she acquired, sold, rented, and administered more than a handful of locande (inns or hotels) in the center of Rome. This essay explores the personal and professional life of Vannozza Cattanei in order to chart her successes as a businesswoman in hotel proprietorship and management, work that allowed her to create a public identity through architecture.

Cattanei was not the typical “invisible” mistress, a term coined by Helen Ettlinger, for her life, her relationships, and her importance as the mother of the Borgia offspring kept her visible throughout history. Historians, art historians, and writers of fiction usually emphasize her roles as the mistress of the powerful Cardinal and as the mother of his children: Juan, Duke of Gandia; the notorious Cesare; Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara; and Joffre. Certainly, Cattanei’s life was scandalous by many standards. While married to one man, she lived and slept with, and bore children to another. Her accumulated wealth was not only based on her husbands’ assets, but on her close relationship to Alexander VI. Cattanei’s role as proprietor of successful locande was dependent on three factors coming together in her favor at the right time: money, opportunity, and location. 

It was through her marriages and relationship with Alexander VI that Vannozza acquired the needed funds to purchase or rent the buildings that she converted into her hotels. Although little historical evidence remains that illuminates Cattanei’s early life, her adult life, during which she married three times and outlived all of her husbands, is quite well documented. She first wed Domenico da Rignano in 1469, most likely at the age of 27, and widowed for the first time in 1474. Together with Domenico, she purchased a house on the Via del Pellegrino, near Campo dei Fiori, for 500 ducats, of which 310 were from her dowry. Umberto Gnoli believes that this house might have been a gift from Cardinal Borgia as a sort of recompense for Domenico, although he offers no evidence to support this statement. 

Cardinal Borgia, while holding the high-ranking office of Vice Cancelliere della Chiesa, an appointment that he received from his uncle, Pope Calixtus III Borgia, built a magnificent palace near the Tiber River, for many years the locus of the relationship between him and Cattanei. However, Cattanei, and eventually the Borgia children, would have claimed their legal domicile to be the house in which she lived with her husband. In 1474, while married to Domenico, Cattanei bore Borgia a son, Juan; a year later, Cesare Borgia was born. Domenico’s death in 1475 left her a widow for the first time. Although no known documents reveal the wealth she possessed at this time, she certainly owned the house on the Pellegrino and she inherited a house whose present-day address is Via di S. Maria in Monticelli. Demolished in the nineteenth century, it once displayed the Rignano family coat of arms. 

While a widow, Cattanei gave birth in 1480 to a third Borgia child, a girl named Lucrezia; she then married again. Cattanei’s second husband, Giorgio della Croce, was an educated man from Milan. Why she decided to wed Giorgio is not known, but it might have been a legal agreement so that she could publicly continue her living arrangements with the powerful Cardinal Borgia. Giorgio undoubtedly benefitted from the arrangement; he received a papal appointment in the same year as his wedding. A year later, Cattanei gave birth to a fourth Borgia child, her third son, Joffre. Shortly after Joffre’s birth, Cattanei and the cardinal terminated their cohabitation. By 1486 Cattanei was living with her husband Giorgio; he fathered her next child, Ottaviano, who died after only two months.

At Giorgio’s death that same year, his inventory revealed that he and his wife owned two houses on the Pellegrino and one on the Piazza di Pizzo Merlo because the couple’s only son had died. Widowed again, Cattanei now had legal ownership of all properties. With her relationship as mistress to Cardinal Borgia now over, the widow married again, on June 8, 1486, with a 1000-ducat dowry. Her third husband, the Milanese Carlo Canale, was in the service of Cardinal Giovanni Giacomo Sclafenato of Parma. Both Cardinal Sclafenato and Carlo moved to Rome, where Carlo’s career prospered. Over the next few years, Canale and Cattanei bought vigne and houses in the Rione Monti, not far from the church of San Martino.

Many years later when Cattanei donated considerable sums to charitable organizations, she asked that prayers be said by the priests of San Salvatore for herself and her husbands—save for Domenico whom she excluded. According to Ettlinger, it was often financially advantageous for a man to allow his wife to conduct a carnal relationship with another, usually more powerful man (“Visibilis,” 771). Cattanei and her husbands bought and sold a variety of properties. She also received, as gifts, many items of expensive jewelry. After her relationship with the cardinal had ended and all three husbands had died, she was left a wealthy widow and continued to live in Rome. During her third marriage, she and her husband had started renting and buying locande in the center of Rome, which most probably brought in considerable sums of money.

Cattanei managed at least six of these small hotels, thus making her an accomplished businesswoman. Gnoli wrote that the terms ospizio, locanda, taverna and osteria all meant rented rooms, usually with food service. He estimated a total of sixty establishments in the center of Rome in the second half of the fifteenth century, the period when Cattanei’s business was flourishing. This figure indicates that she controlled about 10% of the hotel business in the central area around Campo dei Fiori, the major outdoor market where most of the small hotels in this period could be found. The circumstances of Cattanei’s career as an owner of small hotels and their locations can be recovered through documentation of sales, rents, and some lawsuits. 

She operated at least six hotels, whose exact locations are known, though there remain no records concerning their day-to-day operations. Along the Tiber River was the locanda or osteria named the Biscione, very close to the so-called Tor di Nona, a medieval stronghold of the Orsini; from the early fifteenth century, it was used as a pontifical prison. Not far from the Biscione was the Hosteria della Fontana, the Leone Grande, and the Leone Piccolo. The most famous of her hotels was the Locanda della Vacca, a building still standing on its original corner of the Via dei Cappellari and the Via del Gallo at the edge of the Campo dei Fiori, the site of Rome’s famous market place. On November 10, 1500, Cattanei, under the name Vannozza di Carlo Canale, bought half of the Vacca building from Leonardo Capocci, a priest and canon of St. Peter’s, for 1370 ducats. 

Her husband had died by 1500, so she was acting on her own and was in complete control of her own finances during these negotiations. Apparently owning just half of this centrally-located building did not satisfy her, but not until after 1503 was she able to purchase the other half, for the death of Pope Alexander VI and the turmoil that followed likely interfered with the transactions. Documents dated April 1, 1504 refer to her as Vannozza Cataneis de Borgia and verify as false the previous transaction of buying the Vacca and a house on the Via Pellegrino (vendita era stata finta). After the Pope’s death she probably needed to have her claims legalized or at least recognized as valid. She finally acquired the other half of the Vacca building for 1500 ducats from the brothers Pietro, Antonio, and Ciriaco Mattei. 

The exact number of rentable rooms in the Locanda della Vacca is uncertain. However, a rough drawing of the ground plan of the building from 1563 exists in the Archivio di Stato, Rome. The three-story building sat at the busy intersection of the Via dei Cappellari and Vicolo del Gallo. The main doorway, on the Cappellari side, functioned as the main entrance. Once inside, corridors led to the many rooms and a courtyard on the ground level, while there were as many as five staircases leading to the rooms on the two superior floors. Along the front of the building were rentable spaces for four shops which at one time were occupied by a wine shop, a meat shop, a shoe shop, and a hair salon, which provided goods and services needed by tourists and visitors.

Cattanei understood the importance of timing and location in real estate. She acquired the first half of the Vacca in 1500—the year when her former lover, now Pope Alexander VI, called a Jubilee Year—so that she profited from renting rooms to the increased number of visitors to Rome. According to a recent article by Ivana Ait, Cattanei’s career as a female proprietor of several small hotels coincides with a surge in the economic life of Rome, largely due to the return of the papacy from Avignon in 1420 that brought a continuous supply of cardinals, ambassadors, and many others to the city. Records indicate that during the Jubilee of 1450 called by Pope Nicholas V, there was a scarcity of food and beds for the many pilgrims to Rome.

… Cattanei’s position as former mistress to the Pope and mother of the Borgia children would have helped ensure a solid standing with the Apostolic Camera during the early years of the sixteenth century. Whereas her beauty and personal charms may have brought her money and opportunity, it was her sharp business acumen, like Agnelucci’s, that helped her establish herself as one of the most successful female proprietors in Rome. Although the number of hotels run by men was certainly greater than those owned by women, Cattanei, Agnelucci, and de’ Calvi bring to light the successful careers of some women, who managed their own businesses in Renaissance Rome. In her later years Cattanei, as a pious widow, bestowed many large charitable gifts on her favorite institutions: she even donated her Locanda della Vacca to the Hospital of S. Salvatore near St. John Lateran.

Her generosity to the Ospedale di S. Salvatore can be documented by quite a large file of original documents clearly dated 1502, which print her name in large letters as Vannozza Borgia de Catanei. In another document, a notary identifies her as Vannozza Cattanei detta anche Borgia, and yet another as Vannozza Borgia dei Cattanei. She was clearly using the Borgia name to fashion her own identity despite the fact that she was never the legal wife of the cardinal. In fact, during her own life Cattanei chose to assume public visibility of her connection to the Borgia family by commissioning Sebastiano Pellegrini da Como to renovate the Locanda della Vacca and display her coat of arms prominently on the façade.

The coat of arms included heraldic symbols of the Cattanei, the Canale, and the Borgia, constructing a public identity that linked her to her father’s line, her husband’s line, and the line of her lover and children. Despite her successes in business and her charitable works, Venetian Senator and historian Marino Sanudo provided the following description of her funeral, dated December 4, 1518: “With the Company of the Gonfalone, [Vannozza Cattanei] was buried in Santa Maria del Popolo. She was buried with pomp almost comparable to a cardinal. [She] was 66 years old and had left all of her goods, which were not negligible, to St John Lateran [location of the Hospital of S. Salvatore]. The funerals of the cubiculari/servants of the Pope’s bedrooms are not solemn occasions to some.”

The report indicates that her generosity to San Salvatore was well known, although her relationship with a cardinal who became pope was equally well known, and overshadowed her accomplishments. I have tried to make the case that Vannozza Cattanei was much more than the whore of a cardinal who later became Pope. She was a wife, a widow, a successful businesswoman, and a pious woman with a long record of charitable activity. Instead of being known solely as the mistress of Alexander VI, or the mother of the Duke of Gandia, she should also be remembered for her business acumen and her piety: for this, she was celebrated in the records of her charitable gifts as La Magnifica Vannozza, a noble and generous benefactress.”

- Cynthia Stollhans, “Vannozza Cattanei: A Hotel Proprietress in Renaissance Rome.” in Early Modern Women

[thetudorslovers]

"Cesare grew up to be the handsomest man of his day: at twenty-five the venetian envoy Polo Capello, who by then had reason both to hate and to fear him, wrote '[he] is physically most beautiful, . . . tall and well-made'. The Mantuan envoy Boccaccio, who visited him in his palace in the Borgo, the newly built quarter next to the Varican, in March 1493 described him aged seventeen to the Duke of Ferrara: 'He possesses marked genius and a charming personality. He has the manners of a son of a great prince: above all he is lively and merry and fond of society." (Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy)

His first known lover was Dorotea Malatesta:

"Dorotea, the twenty-three-year-old natural daughter of Roberto Malatesta of Rimini, was the wife of Giambattista Caracciolo, a Neapolitan nobleman serving as captain of infantry in the Venetian army, whom she had met at the court of Urbino where she had been brought up as a a protegee of the Duchess Elisabetta. The marriage had been celebrated by proxy at Urbino, and at the time of the kidnapping Dorotea had been travelling under Venetian protection to join her husband, who was commanding the garrison of Gradisca against the Turks. At the request of Venice, Cesare had provided an armed escort for the lady, and the abduction had taken place just after her company had crossed into Venetian territory."

The second one was  Fiammetta de' Michelis. (Florentine courtesan and lover in 1500.)

"Meanwhile, Cesare was beginning to enjoy his enforced rest from the battlefield; and while his wife Charlotte d’Albret, who had given birth to his daughter, remained in France, Cesare spent much of his time with his mistress, an extremely pretty and entertaining young woman, Fiammetta de’ Michelis, whose accomplishments and complaisance as a cortigiana had enabled her to buy three houses in Rome as well as a country house outside the city walls. Cultivated as well as desirable, she spoke Latin, knew pages of Ovid and Petrarch by heart, sang well, and played the lyre; her handsome lover was often to be seen on his way to and from her house near the Piazza Navona."

Drusilla is also memtioned,yet not recorded, being a lady-in-waiting to his sister Lucrezia and mother of Cesare's natural offspring:

-Girolamo Borgia.

-Isabella Pizzabernari

- Isabella, Contessa di Carpi.

-Camilla Borgia, Abbess of Sand Bernardino, Ferrara

The sources also speak of Sancha de Aragon, princesa di Squillace and contessa di Coriata.

" Setting Lucrezia aside, however, we find at this period at the Vatican, not a sister of Caesar and Gandia, but a sister-in-law, Donna Sancha of Aragon, the wife of Don Gioffre, Prince of Squillace, daughter of the brother of the king of Naples, and sister of Alfonso de Bisceglie, afterwards the second husband of Lucrezia. The shameless conduct of this princess is declared by history. Sancha's behavior shocked Alexander himself, who banished her, and it is difficult to reject the testimony of the ambassador of Ferrara, and that of the master of the ceremonies to Alexander VI, both of whom represent her having shared her favors between her two brothers-in-law at the same time." (The Living Age, Volume 176: 71)

[venicepearl]

Sancha of Aragon (1478 in Gaeta – 1506 in Naples), or Sancia of Aragon, was an illegitimate daughter of King Alfonso II of Naples and his mistress Trogia Gazzela. In 1494, she was married to Gioffre Borgia, youngest son of Pope Alexander VI. Upon her marriage, she and her husband were created Prince and Princess of Squillace, a province in the south of Italy. For the majority of their marriage, Sancha and her husband lived in the Vatican with the rest of his family. There Sancha became friends with her sister-in-law Lucrezia, and allegedly had affairs with both of her husband's older brothers: Juan Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandia, also known as Giovanni Borgia, and Cesare Borgia. Her affair with Juan is sometimes said to be the reason for Cesare's alleged murder of Juan in 1497.

Sancha's brother, Alfonso of Aragon, married Lucrezia Borgia. Sancha's life among the Borgias became a turbulent one after Cesare made an advantageous marriage with a French princess, Charlotte d'Albret, in order to secure French support for his military campaigns. This put Cesare's interests in direct conflict with those of the Italian states. Sancha's home city of Naples was no exception, and it had long been nervous about militant French interests.

It is rumored that Alfonso was brutally murdered in 1500 by Cesare, due to interests with France against Naples. Sancha, now a political embarrassment, was imprisoned in the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome until the death of Pope Alexander in 1503. Upon his death, she managed to regain her freedom and returned to Naples with her young nephew, Rodrigo, whom she raised as her own. She never lived with her husband, Gioffre, again. Cesare visited her not long after and asked if she would take on the care of Giovanni "The Roman Infant", possibly Lucrezia's illegitimate child, but probably the illegitimate child of Pope Alexander VI, which she agreed to do. She died of an undisclosed illness in 1506, a year before Cesare's own death.

[ducavalentinos]

Hello, What were the opinions of the people who personally knew Cesare ? Thank you !

Hello ;) So, there were a lot of opinions made about Cesare by his contemporaries, but most of the opinions come from people who met him, not knew him intimately. The unfortunate thing here is that Cesare is mostly seen through the lenses of people outside his inner circle: ambassadors, orators, enemies who wrote daily dispatches, reports, letters to their employers and others. Some of this material has weight and it’s helpful, but still they all contain the unavoidable political element and focus towards Cesare as the political figure, not Cesare as a person. There are interesting glimpses of his personality and intimate life here and there, but never enough to make more than a sketch of it, and often much of it is distorted, with incorrect information and/or evaluations which were believed at the time to have been accurate. Cesare through the lenses of people inside his inner circle: people who knew him intimately, people he trusted and loved and vice-versa, are frustratingly limited, there’s almost nothing, which creates a big unbalance about his figure and his life. I believe the opinions of his beloved tutor Giovanni Vera, his most known secretary and adviser Agapito Geraldini di Amelia, or Miguel da Corella, or of his mother, his sister, his wife, would be incredibly valuable in order to have more precise knowledge, and a more rounded assessment about his person, in all of its facets, since we don’t have that, what fills up this gap are the words of one of his first secretaries, the alleged words of his father, Rodrigo, and the words of intellectuals and poets who interacted with him at his father’s court in Rome, some later following him at his own court in the Romagna, beneath the exaggerated flattery common in these writings, these men make some interesting observations, and express a genuine opinion about Cesare, aside from just the political man, which helps to shed a light into his personality, his qualities, and other aspects of his life. With this in mind, I gathered opinions that can be confirmed by Cesare’s own documented actions, and that I find are generally reliable: not entirely dominated by personal/political bias, and absent of the malice and gossip which became more common the more powerful Cesare and his family became. There are mix between the first group (ambassadors, orators, enemies, etc), the second group (people close to him, intellectuals and poets), and maybe there will be one or two which does not belong to either group, so I’ll leave them for last as a type of miscellaneous third group, in chronological order: 1488:

“What thanks can I give you, Cesare Borgia? May this auspicious day be celebrated as a festive day, in which this work comes to light only out of your love, and if our judgment is worth something, it will be most useful for general prosperity. In this book, we teach how to write a poem, exploring and manifesting all the secrets of metric art. Certainly a work that will please you very much. [...]Add to that your great and truly effective love for beautiful letters.You, Cesare, are truly worthy of much commendation, if at such a young age you act with the wisdom of an old man. Forward, then, O hope and ornament of the Borgia family, and accept with a good heart our Syllables, an offering of your devoted friend. So I believe that my name, joined to your eternal name and that of [your house], will have ornament and life."

- Extracts from a dedication written to Cesare by Paolo Pompilio,h in his Syllabica, a literature text-book of verse composition, published in the same year. 1492:

“Cesare Borgia profited so much that, with ardent ingenuity, he discussed the questions posed to him both in Canon law and in Civil law.”

- Paolo Giovio, concerning the Disputation for the laurea at the University of Pisa, where Cesare studied from 1491 to 1492. 1493:

"On the day before yesterday I found Cesare at home in Trastevere. He was on the point of setting out to go hunting, and entirely in secular habit. that is to say, dressed in silk and armed. Riding together, we talked a while, I am among his most intimate acquaintances. He is a man of great talent and of an excellent nature; his manners are those of the son of a great prince; above everything, he is joyous and light-hearted. He is very modest**, much superior to, and of a much finer appearance than his brother the Duke of Gandia, who also is not short of natural gifts."

- Disp. written by Gianandrea Boccaccio to his employer, the Duke of Ferrara, Ercole d'Este. 1497:

"Nature has engendered in you not the seed of virtù, but virtù itself, and in occupying herself to form you, [she] has adorned your body with an excellent form, dignity, and every beauty, and provided the soul with moderation**, decorum, gravity, benevolence, and above all royal liberality**, which nature seemed to have surpassed herself. And this liberality of yours, is shown with writers and artists."

- Extract from a dedication written by one of Cesare's secretaries, Carlo Valgulio, in the first transl. of Cleomedes: De contemplatione orbium excelsorum. 1499:

“By his modesty, his readiness, his prudence, and his other virtues he has known how to earn the affections of every one.”

- Letter written by Giuliano Della Rovere, to pope Alexander VI, concerning Cesare's arrival in France.**

"The Pope's son was very gallant..."

- Baldassare Castiglione, in a letter after seeing the entrance of Cesare and his suite alongside King Louis XII of France in Milan. 1500:

“To-day, about the twenty-second hour (four in the afternoon), after he had dined, he had signor Ramiro fetch me to him; and with great frankness and amiability his Majesty first made his excuses for not granting me an audience the preceding day, owing to his having so much to do in the castle and also on account of the pain caused by his ulcer. Following this, and after I had stated that the sole object of my misson was to wait upon his Majesty to congratulate and thank thim, and to offer your services, he answered me in carefully chosen words, covering each point and very fluently. The gist of it was, that knowing your Excellency’s ability and goodness, he had always loved you and had hoped to enjoy personal relations with you. He had looked forward to this when you were in Milan, but events and circumstances then prevented it. But now that he had come to this country, he --determined to have his wish-- had written the letter announcing his successes, of his own free will and as proof of his love, and feeling certain that you Majesty would be pleased by it. He says he will continue to keep you informed of his doings**, as he desires to establish a firm friendship with your Majesty, and he proffers everything he owns and in his power should you ever have need.[...]When I take both the actual facts and his words into consideration, I see why he wishes to establish some sort of friendly alliance with your Majesty. I believe in his professions, and I can see nothing but good in them.”

Postscript: “The Duke’s daily life is as follows: he goes to bed at eight, nine, or ten o’clock at night (three to five o’clock in the morning). Consequently, the eighteenth hour is his dawn, the nineteenth his sunrise, and the twentieth his time for rising. Immediately on getting up he sits down to the table, and while there and afterwards he attends to his business affairs. He is considered brave, strong, and generous, and it is said he lays great store by straightforward men.[...]He is great of spirit and he seeks eminence and glory.”

- Extracts from a Disp. of Pandolfo Collenuccio to his employer, the Duke of Ferrara, Ercole d’Este, from Pesaro. 1501:

"This lord is very magnificent and splendid, and so spirited in feats of arms that there is nothing so great but that it must seem small to him. In the pursuit of glory and to acquire a State he never rests, and he knows neither danger nor fatigue. He moves so swiftly that he arrives at a place before it is known that he has set out for it. He knows how to make himself beloved of his soldiers, and he has in his service the best men of Italy. These things render him victorious and formidable, and to these is yet to be added his perpetual good fortune."

- Disp. written by Niccolò Machiavelli to the Signory of Florence. 1502:

"He [Cesare] argues with such sound reason that to dispute with him would be a long affair, for his wit and eloquence never fail him (dello ingegno e della lingua si vale quanto vuole...)

-Disp. written by Francesco Soderini, from Urbino, to the Signory of Florence.

"The duke[Cesare] is good-natured, but he cannot tolerate offenses."

- Rodrigo Borgia, to the Ferrarese ambassador B. Constabili.

Miscellaneous: A certain author named Camillo di Leonardo from Pesaro dedicates to Cesare, in the year of 1502, his famous work Speculum Lapidum, in which he 'commends the duke for his great love of letters, his courteous liberality towards the scholarly, the care he used when collecting the beautiful and numerous [works] of the library of Cesena, and even his sweetness and his gentleness.' Gaspare Torella, one of Cesare's personal physician and advisers also dedicated to him his Dialogus de Dolore, in which he says he is "...pleased that [Cesare's] virtù surpassed those of the great ones of Rome, such as the justice of Brutus, the constancy of Decius, the continence of Scipio, the loyalty of Marco Regolo, and the magnanimity of Paolo Emilio.” The French commanders used to say of Cesare: “At war he was a good companion and a brave man." The Spanish historian Zurita, atypically pays a compliment to Cesare when assessing the situation in Italy and of pope Julius' panic when hearing about Cesare's escape from the Spanish prison in 1506, he writes: "The duke was such that his very presence was enough to set all Italy agog; and he was greatly beloved, not only by men of war, but also by many people of Tuscany and of the States of the Church." Lastly, during the winter of 1500-1501, a scholar and poet named Francesco Uberti, native of Cesena, adressed to Cesare a volume of epigrams, all which show the Romagnese opinion about him. According to Uberti, Cesare's Romagnese subjects learned his temper was 'mitissima' (gentle), 'placidissima' (calm) and his 'crueltà' (cruelty) was the severity necessary to repress political disorders. There is also other epigrams where Tiberti praises Cesare's clemency, "pious and kind Cesare..." ** The terms modesty and moderation, according to Gregorovius, can be also taken to 'understand as part and manifestation of a liberal education,...’ and the term liberality means generous, which Cesare was particularly reputed as being, to such a degree his genorosity was called at the time after his own name as “liberalità cesarea”. ** I decided to add Della Rovere’s words about Cesare, because as writer and historian Anthony Everitt said in one of his books: “Praise from one’s worst enemy is the most annoying, but also the most credible, of compliments.” and because even if Della Rovere’s words are insincere, likely, these words can nevertheless be confirmed by the opinions of others about Cesare, esp. in the historical records about his soujour at France. **Cesare had sent long letters to Ercole d'Este while he was at the conquest of Imola and Forlì, telling him the details of the military campaign.

[blorbosexterminator]

what's your opinion on the argument that gandia already knew how to escape from the handcuffs because he was an elite soldier?

My opinion is that it's, respectfully, one of the stupidest arguments in the fandom. Worse, it's one that doesn't and wouldn't exist at all if Martín wasn't the betraying perpetrator and it was anyone else, like Tokyo for example, and it didn't trigger this part's of the audience desire to absolve the gay tragic baby from any thing he canonically did.

I fundamentally disagree with every single layer of this argument, including a lot of things that concern my personal approach to fiction and media. I'll start with the basics. I personally don't adhere to the idea of holding a blade on the writer's throat; this is no way, in my personal believe, to deal with fiction, stories and/or media. I see no reason to deal with things this way. Not all work is going to be realistic from A to Z with all the little details and divergences in between. (And really, when you start watching a show like La Casa de Papel, you already agree to a certain extent of suspense of disbelief.) And it has no reason to. You meet stories half-way. You see, fucking clearly regarding a point like this one, what the writer is trying to do. I personally strongly adhere to 'the intention of the author', I care about the writer's intention even if the way is somewhat clunky.

Especially in a point like this one, that storyline was a vehicle and not an end of itself. Are the cogs and wheels of this vehicle somewhat malfunctioning? Yes. Do they look a bit broken and glued together? Yes. Does this mean it's not apparent what they are supposed to be? Absolutely not. Everyone who has watched season 4 knows exactly what is this supposed to be. The intention and the endgoal of this scene are clear. They aren't about whether someone like Gandia, an elite solider, knows how to escape handcuffs or not. If that were the case, the scene and storyline would have looked completely different and we would know that's the intended discussion of the scene. Knowing that this is not the case as we all do is nothing but sidetracking the story focusing on stupid shit, literally just Cinemasining, but rather than satirically, we do it seriously and call it respectful criticism lmfao. And for what? To prove that the uwu gay baby did nothing wrong, all horrible things would have happened either way uwu.

This is my second point. This scene and storyline have two abundantly crystal clear goals in the show: 1) To set up the conflict of the season of course with Gandia as the clear villain inside the bank, proving to us his danger that they've been setting up. 2) Character exposition for Martín, the anti-hero, and the cause for the extreme internal conflict inside the banda. This character exposition is clear. The writers wrote Martín as an egomanical character obsessed with his plan and set up the idea that he would go to any limits for it, to the extent of unleashing a literal assassin on his fellow teammates. This is the main thing, that if not for this way, the writers would have eventually found any other one. The one suspense of disbelief the showrunners ask of you is that to believe an elite solider didn't know how to unlock himself and Martin did. The point here isn't what an elite solider know and doesn't know; saying this would be willful ignorance. The point is that Martín would metaphorically and literally unleash a killing force on his own team if things don't go his way. (and you can argue that Gandia unlocking himself at this moment had less to do with his knowledge and more to do with figuring out that the team has reached the ultimate moment of internal fracture if their own leader is willng to unleash him on them and taking advantage of it. But alas, this is neither here nor there.)

So the thing is, if you've already watched three season of La Casa de Papel, and willingly accepted all the ridiculous plotholes and assumptions and unrealistic moments leading up to this one, but found only issue with this.... then lmfao, I don't know what to tell you, but it's obvious to me where you're coming from, and it's not a place I honestly have much respect for. The one and only reason anyone argues this out is to absolve Martin from his responsibility. This is the only context I've ever seen this argument in. And I personally disagree with it lmfao. It's in his canonical description that Martin is volatile and pretty much ready to go to all lengths to achieve what he wants. If it wasn't Gandia, it would have been somethinge else. And yes, I agree it was clumsily and hurridly written and everything, and whatever other plotline the writers would have put instead of this one would probably still be, but this doesn't really matter; not when it's still very clear what they are trying to do. Even if they haven't done it perfectly, it's fine! We meet writers half-way, because otherwise, stopping at every little thing with a sin counter, is honestly no way for me to enjoy media or to even enjoy criticism itself.

[dancingfox8428]

RELIEF! RELIEF!

If you weren't insanely happy when Sagasta said "Cesar Gandia, down", what is wrong with you?

On another note, If you weren't super mad when Monica said "Arturo lived" again, what is wrong with you?

[cesareeborgia]

Have you ever come across a memory that talks about Cesare or his family? for example :Duke of Saint-Simon, Thank You.

hi anon,

here are some quotes describing cesare borgia:

Cesare has great talents and a noble bearing, like the son of a prince...he is invariably carefree and cheerful, and always seems in high spirits but he shows no propensity to be a churchman. (Hollingsworth, The Borgias)

He is man of great talent and of an excellent nature; his manners are those of the son of a great prince; above everything, he is joyous and light-hearted. He is very modest, much superior to, and of a much finer appearance than, his brother the Duke of Gandia, who also is not short of natural gifts. (Sabatini, Life of Cesare Borgia)

What cruelties were not the result of [Cesare Borgia]? Who could count all his crimes? Such was the man that Machiavel prefers to all the great geniuses of his time, and to the heroes of antiquity, and of which he finds the life and action make a good example for those that fortune favors. (Frederick the Great, Anti-machiavel)

Cesare Borgia, called Duke Valentino by the common people, acquired his state through the fortune of his father and lost it in the same manner, and that despite the fact that he did everything that a prudent and capable [virtuoso] man should do to put his roots down in those states that the arms and fortune of others had granted him . . . [I]f he did not profit from what he established, it was not his fault but resulted from the extraordinary and extreme malice of Fortune. (Machiavelli, The Prince)

as for the Duke of Saint-Simon, I'm not sure what you mean or how that relates to cesare? if you were more specific, then perhaps I can add more. hopefully this is what you meant, if not, please let me know.

[mermaidsirennikita]

How would you rank David Oakes's troubled brother of a more famous historical figure as character/performance?

1. Ernst, Victoria--I was madly in love with Ernst, tbh. He was roguish, he was dashing, he was sweet, he was troubled; I loved his relationship with Albert, and his romance on the show. (I HATED HOW THEY ENDED THAT SHIT.). Hashtag JusticeforErnst.

2. Juan Borgia, The Borgias--What a flop. What a loser. What a definitive David Oakes character. Love that Juan was kind of the truth teller of the family? He was all "Cesare wants to kill me" and everyone was like oh my God Juan that's so ridiculous. What ended up happening? He was all "Cesare and Lucrezia wanna fuck" and everyone was like oh my God Juan that's gross. What ended up happening? We stan an insightful (if incredibly problematic) Duke of Gandia.

3. George, The White Queen--The White Queen was not... good... But David Oakes is always good. In this one, David Oakes dies by drowning in a vat of wine. A good death. Show needed more David Oakes.

[cortegiania]

Hi ! What was the opinion of the people who knew Cesare Borgia? I guess not everyone hated it x)

Hi! I‘m going to be fully obvious here: the most disinterested contemporary opinion on Cesare I can think of is one Machiavelli reported to the Florentine signoria after meeting him in 1502:

This Lord is truly splendid and magnificent, and in war there is no enterprise so great that it does not appear small to him; in the pursuit of glory and lands he never rests nor recognizes fatigue or danger. He arrives in one place before it is known that he has left another; he is popular with his soldiers and he has collected the best men in Italy...

Just nine years before a Ferrarese ambassador who called himself an intimate acquaintance of his, Gian Andrea Boccaccio, had said about him:

He is man of great talent and of an excellent nature; his manners are those of the son of a great prince; above everything, he is joyous and light-hearted. He is very modest, much superior to, and of a much finer appearance than, his brother the Duke of Gandia, who also is not short of natural gifts. 

I like to give these two reports in particular because they underline a change in him; clearly, Machiavelli didn’t see the “joyous, light-hearted” boy Cesare had been as a teenager. Perhaps because of the circumstances in which he met him, or maybe he’d just changed. What remained unchanged was his princely attitude. 

I’m going to leave you here a link to our Cesare thread, it’s very long and it may contain more reports I can’t remember about. I hope I helped anyway. x

[thetudorslovers]

"Gian Carlo Scalona, the Mantuan ambassador, was not so impressed with Sancia, after all the reports from Naples extolling her charms and her beauty. ‘Indeed, the Lady of Pesaro,’ as Lucrezia was known, ‘surpassed her by far.’ He commented, however, that the twenty-two-year-old bride had ‘glancing eyes, an aquiline nose and is very well made up.’ He did not make direct mention of Sancia’s reputation for extremely louche behaviour, though he did report to his master that the Romans had judged her ladies-in-waiting to be ‘a fine crop."

Sancia of Naples (1478-1506), also known as Sancha of Aragon, was the Princess of Squillace from 1494 until her death in 1506. She was the illegitimate daughter of King Ferrante I of Naples, and she was married to Pope Alexander VI's son Joffre Borgia as a part of a political alliance. However, it is rumored she had affairs with his brothers Juan and Cesare Borgia and even the Pope himself.

In 1494, she was married to Gioffre Borgia, youngest son of Pope Alexander VI. Upon her marriage, she and her husband were created Prince and Princess of Squillace, a province in the south of Italy. For the majority of their marriage, Sancha and her husband lived in the Vatican with the rest of his family. There Sancha became friends with her sister-in-law Lucrezia, and allegedly had affairs with both of her husband's older brothers: Juan Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandia, also known as Giovanni Borgia, and Cesare Borgia. Her affair with Juan is sometimes said to be the reason for Cesare's alleged murder of Juan in 1497.

It is rumored  that Alfonso was brutally murdered in 1500 by Cesare, due to interests with France against Naples. Sancha, now a political embarrassment, was imprisoned in the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome until the death of Pope Alexander in 1503. Upon his death, she managed to regain her freedom and returned to Naples with her young nephew, Rodrigo, whom she raised as her own. She never lived with her husband, Gioffre, again. Cesare visited her not long after and asked if she would take on the care of Giovanni "The Roman Infant", possibly Lucrezia's illegitimate child, but probably the illegitimate child of Pope Alexander VI, which she agreed to do. She died of an undisclosed illness in 1506, a year before Cesare's own death.