February 18, 2013
To his credit, Meyer (The Tudors) is forthright about how this supposed “hidden history” of the Italian Renaissance’s most controversial family came to be: it is the product of “ year of research on both sides of the Atlantic.” Unfortunately, the shortcomings of such a limited inquiry are plainly obvious—the bibliography reveals mostly 20th-century American and British texts, a few translations, and a handful of primary sources—and his history is riddled with assumptions about the inner motivations of historical characters (“Perhaps it is in the nature of such men to be drawn by their own success into increasingly extreme positions. Certainly it was in Savonarola’s nature”). Meyer portrays Rodrigo (later Pope Alexander VI) as affable and with a “childish love for pomp”; Cesare as wild but competent, and the victim of his enemies’ slander; and, like many scholars before him, he removes Lucrezia from the role of seductress, painting her instead as a docile pawn (never mind her business acumen, building projects, and patronage). Though Meyer’s is a much better primer on the complex dynasty than the ongoing TV show The Borgias, very little of this tedious account was heretofore hidden. Family tree, timeline, maps. Agent: Judith Riven, Judith Riven Literary Agency.