Caesar Borgia: A Study of the Renaissance

CESAR BORGIA
From an early engraving.
Frontispiece.
CAESAR BORGIA
A STUDY OF THE RENAISSANCE
BY JOHN LESLIE GARNER
WITH 17 ILLUSTRATIONS
T. FISHER UNWIN LONDON: 1 ADELPHI TERRACE LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20 1912
( All rights reserved. )
Although much has been written regarding the Borgias, no monograph devoted to Caesar—the most interesting member of the family as a psychological study—has hitherto appeared in English.
With the passing of the “great man theory,” biography and history have become completely separated, and a personality such as Caesar Borgia is interesting now chiefly as a product of the egoism of the age. Vast, unrestrained selfishness was the predominant characteristic of the men of the Italian Renaissance. The Peninsula was in the grasp of a number of petty tyrants who, to advance their own interests and those of their families, hesitated at no crime.
Never before was love of power so general and carried to such extremes. Men and women were mere pawns in a stupendous political game. In the governing families the women especially were regarded as assets to be used in establishing alliances to increase the power of the clan.