The Borgias

Borgia decided to take as his papal name Alexander VI. This was widely seen as an allusion to Alexander the Great, rather than St Alexander, the second-century martyr, for Borgia had already blatantly named his son Cesare after Julius Caesar

These dishes consisted of frugal fare, in keeping with the oaths of poverty, chastity and obedience once taken by the clerical participants. However, this austere regime was not imposed to accord with priestly vows, but to encourage the conclave of wealthy cardinals unused to enduring such privation to reach a conclusion as hastily as possible

At night the cardinals shared plain wooden cells, sleeping on simple uncomfortable palliasses

The charismatic Lorenzo the Magnificent was described by Innocent VIII as ‘the needle of the Italian compass’, in grateful recognition of his diplomatic skill in guiding the fortunes of Italy safely through the stormy seas of its turbulent politics

By then Innocent VIII had become so weak that he was able ‘to take for nourishment no more than a few drops of milk from the breast of a young woman’

In order to cure Innocent VIII, Giacomo di San Genesio decided to perform ‘the world’s first blood transfusion’. This involved him bleeding the Pope, whilst at the same time inducing him to drink draughts of freshly drawn youthful blood, a treatment which would result in the death of three ten-year-old boys,