Sweeping aside the gossip, slander, and distortion that have shrouded the Borgias for centuries, G. J. Meyer offers an unprecedented portrait of the infamous Renaissance family and their storied milieu. They burst out of obscurity in Spain to capture the great prize of the papacy, not once but twice. Throughout a tumultuous half-century--as popes, statesmen, warriors, lovers, and breathtakingly ambitious political adventurers--they held center stage in the glorious and blood-drenched pageant known to us as the Italian Renaissance. Five centuries after their fall--a fall even more sudden than their rise to the heights of power--they remain symbols of the depths to which humanity can descend: Rodrigo, who bought the papal crown and prostituted the Roman Church; Cesare, who became the most treacherous cutthroat of a violent time; Lucrezia, as immoral as she was beautiful. But did these Borgias of legend actually exist? Grounding his narrative in exhaustive research and drawing from rarely examined key sources, Meyer brings fascinating new insight to the real people within the age-encrusted myth. Equally illuminating is the light he shines on the brilliant circles in which the Borgias moved and the thrilling era they helped to shape.--From publisher description.