The EconomistJune 29th 2019 Books & arts 81T
heborgiasachievedmanyremarkable
things. They reformed and rebuilt
Rome; they were patrons of geniuses such
as Leonardo da Vinci; and they influenced
the course of world events for centuries. It
is, for example, thanks to a single Borgia
ruling in 1494 that Brazil now speaks Portu-
guese, whereas most of South America uses
Spanish. But perhaps the most noteworthy
accomplishment of this noble Aragonese
dynasty, which during the Renaissance
produced two popes and many legends, is
that it managed to bring disgrace upon the
Catholic church. Then, as now, this was no
mean feat; after all, previous bishops of
Rome had rarely been as infallible as later
dogma insisted.
Take Pope Formosus. In the ninth cen-
tury he was exhumed, dressed in full papal
regalia, put on trial as a corpse—and found
guilty of perjury and violating the laws of
the church. Or consider the exuberant Pope
Paul II, who in 1471 expired from apoplexy
apparently brought on by “immoderate
feasting on melons”, followed by “the ex-
cessive effect of being sodomised by one of
his favourite boys”. Or Pope Innocent VIII,
who in 1492 is said to have spent his final
days drinking blood drawn from three ten-
year-old boys (who all died), and supping
milk from a young woman’s breast. For
health reasons, naturally.
Long before the rise of the Borgias,
therefore, this was an institution well-ac-
quainted with embarrassment. Yet as Paul
Strathern shows in his new book, the fam-
ily eclipsed them all. As a result, the 11-year
reign of Rodrigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI)
is still, to many, “the most notorious in pa-
pal history”. Although not everyone agreed.
When, some decades later, Sixtus V was
asked to name his greatest predecessors, he
offered St Peter—and Borgia.
Mr Strathern’s even-handed book
shows how this rosy judgment was possi-
ble—if not, now, entirely plausible. The
Borgias, he writes, “were often better than
they appeared”. The first Borgia pope, Cal-
lixtus III, did the job for only three years,
from 1455 to 1458. When his nephew, Alex-
ander VI, came to power in 1492 the Eternal
City was suffering from the eternal pro-
blems of banditry, corruption and vio-
lence. Punctilious in his work, Alexander
expelled mercenaries, created an armed
watch and overhauled the justice system.
Fewreaderswillpickupa bookonthe
Borgiashopingfordetailsofcityadminis-
tration,however—andMrStratherndoes
notstintonthedepravity.Alexanderhad
whatMrStratherndiscreetlycallsan“evi-
dentenjoymentoflife”.Takea partythat
Cesare,hisillegitimateson(anda some-
timecardinal),heldintheVatican.Itwas
attendedbythepopeand 50 courtesans,
whoafterdinnerdanced“fullydressedand
thennaked”.Chestnutswerethrownonto
thefloorwhichthecourtesans“hadtopick
up[withtheirvaginas]”.Cesare,somewhat
unsurprisingly,caughtsyphilis.
Thisisa bookrichinsuchtellingde-
tails—ifsometimesalsoinlesscompelling
ones.Charactersandaristocratictitlespro-
liferate,tosucha degreethatreadersmay
struggletokeepup.Butitisworthpersist-
ing.TheBorgias,MrStrathernexplains,did
not merely acquire their reputation
through roistering and making the bu-
reaucracyrunontime.Theyalsoearnedit
throughtheruthlesseliminationoftheir
enemies—andfriends.Cesare’sownbroth-
erturnedupintheTiber,brutallystabbed.
A disliked brother-in-law was also dis-
patched.A trustedallywascutintwo.
TheBorgias’ambitionwasboundless;
theirlegacyprovedtobeenormous.Not
withoutreasondidMachiavellimakeCe-
saretheheroofhismasterpieceofsinister
machination,“The Prince”.Thatbookin
turnbecamethecompanionofsomeofthe
world’smostoverweeningleaders.Napo-
leontravelledwithit; Mussoliniquoted
fromit;SaddamHusseinkeptit byhisbed-
side.Fewpontiffsbeforeorsincecanclaim
tohavehadsuchinfluence. 7Papal history
Family affairs
The Borgias.By Paul Strathern.
Pegasus Books; 400 pages; $28.95.
Atlantic Books; £25
Alexander the not so great“I
wasthearminuta, theonewhowasre-
turned.” So says the narrator of Dona-
tella Di Pietrantonio’s third novel (entitled
“L’Arminuta” in Italy), her first published in
English. The return—or the “transfer” as
one character terms it—takes place one af-
ternoon in August 1975. An unnamed 13-
year-old girl is wrenched from the people
she assumed were her parents and deposit-
ed with a group of unfriendly strangers
who, she is told, are her birth family. What
follows is a captivating tale about the trials
of settling down, fitting in and battling on
amid emotional upheaval.
During the girl’s prolonged adjustment,
she is both a fish out of water and a cuckoo
in the nest. No longer an only child with
ample urban comforts, she must get used
to a hardscrabble life in the Abruzzo coun-
tryside, with taciturn parents who beat
their offspring and cruel brothers who tor-
ment her. After some time in “the family
that was mine against my will”, she finds
allies in her younger sister Adriana and
older brother Vincenzo—who each crave
her company for reasons of their own.
This new life is a rollercoaster. The girl
excels at school and reconnects with an old
friend in the city whom she was forced to
leave behind. But eventually tragedy
strikes, rocking and nearly rupturing the
family. Meanwhile, for all her progress, she
is constantly afflicted by a feeling of root-
lessness: “I was a child of separations, false
or unspoken kinships, distances. I no lon-
ger knew who I came from.”
And she doesn’t know why she was re-
turned. Did the woman she still calls
“Mamma” give her up because she was ill,
even dying, or did her supposedly “real”
parents want her back? For most of the nov-
el Ms Di Pietrantonio keeps both her pro-
tagonist and her readers in the dark. All
their questions are answered by way of
shock truths in the final act, in which the
girl and her mamma are brought together
for a powerful showdown.
Expertly translated by Ann Goldstein, “A
Girl Returned” is as heart-warming as it is
heart-rending. Both the heroine’s resil-
ience and her confusion are poignant—as
is her naive belief that her loved ones will
realise their error and come to collect her.
In this shrewd examination of identity and
belonging, Ms Di Pietrantonio ensures that
her character’s loss is her reader’s gain. 7Italian fictionMamma mia
A Girl Returned. By Donatella Di
Pietrantonio. Translated by Ann Goldstein.
Europa Editions; 160 pages; $16 and £12.99