The Italian Renaissance was one of my favorite history classes in college. Ah, the humanists, the art, and the wonderfully distinct city-states. Unfortunately, it was also a very corrupt time in church history, and most of Italy was fractured into clans, despite it's immense wealth from trade.
I have finished watching Showtime's The Borgias via Amazon streaming. I must admit Jeremy Irons as Pope Alexander VI is deliciously evil, and I do enjoy the plotting of Cesare Borgia (pope's son), who was famous for being the model of Machiavelli's prince. The actress that plays Lucrezia Borgia (the pope's daughter) is very beautiful. She's a bit too innocence, but you can see why her contemporaries described her as seeming to "walk on air". SHe has an ethereal, other-worldly quality to her.
Whatever you though, don't watch the Netflix version Borgias: Faith and Fear, which is a totally different production from Showtime and quite terrible. I'm not usually a prude, but yeesh. I know during the Renaissance, the cardinals were a bit power hungry, but I doubt they would have had open fist fights. The scene in which Cardinal Borgia becomes Pope Alexandra VI, he basically looks up (at God?) screaming "YES!!!!! FINALLY!!!!" Then he turns to other cardinals and says "Sorry, I just had to do that." Ok, I exaggerate. It was pretty bad though. They portray Lucrezia Borgia is an airhead, which makes me grimace since the real historical figure spoke and wrote in five languages, including Latin and Greek and became a power wielder in her own right. Even if they didn't follow the historical figure real character, the screen writers could have dived into literature, portraying her as a femme fatale.
The above is Titian's Bella, but you can see more paintings here:
http://homepages.wmich.edu/~rowen/renbk/paintings.html
Lucrezia Borgia (Borgias, Showtime)
I just think her dress is beautiful. I also like all the pictures and paintings too.
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