Cesare Borgia, His Life and Times Book

I wasn't planning on reading anything related to the Borgias this year, because I lean towards shying away like a scalded cat from this topic due to the lack of seriousness and sensationalism surrounding this family in HF. But then, I found Fuyumi Soryo's excellent historical Manga series Cesare, and felt the need to go back into the true story to complement the fictional one, and this thorough biography by Sarah Bradford crossed my path.

And it turned out to be more enjoyable and informative than suspected from the sample I'd read before deciding to pick it up. Cesare Borgia is, beyond whatever reactions his controversial figure may arouse, a truly interesting man with a life worthy of a novel, and Bradford has done an excellent job of presenting him as a fascinating if imperfect and ruthless man, charismatic and brilliant if not always politically astute, a ruler apt for the times he lived in and that achieved considerable feats though in the end he was far from successful, and had a short life that ended tragically. The style this book is written in is detailed, with plenty of primary sources cited, including some the author went to consult personally in Spain that aren't usually named in other Borgia biographies, and she provided some bits of information on aspects I didn’t know about Cesare. Bradford also doesn't hesitate to call a spade a spade, and goes into elucubrations over the sources for confirming or debunking the most salacious gossips that have survived into our day, like his supposed romantic involvement with his sister Lucrezia. In some cases, her conclusions are ambiguous, of the "It's perfectly possible that..." sort that tend more towards educated guesses than straight stating what the people of the time thought or felt, which is always appreciated.

As a downside, I'd cite that the amount of info Bradford packs into this medium-length biography is overwhelming, more so if you: a) don't feel genuine interest in Cesare and/or the Borgias, b) aren't fascinated by Renaissance Italy, c) don't have some basic idea of the Italian establishment at the time. But fortunately, I should also mention that, to offset all this, Bradford writes in a fast-paced style, or maybe it's that Cesare's life was fast-paced and tumultuous itself, so you won't be bored if you can cope with the flood of information. Also, if you find Cesare interesting, then that's what you need to motivate you through this, you don't even need to have a basic idea of the time period's political ups and downs, Bradford will enlighten you, the "and times" part of the subtitle isn't there for sounding pretty, after all!