Not unlike many of the Renaissance families of Italy, the Borgias were power hungry, corrupt, and self-indulgent. But their ...

This story appears in the January/February 2017 issue of National Geographic History magazine. On a spring day in 1480, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia ordered various astrologers to his home in Rome to ...

TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of ...