A Party So Wild it was Condemned by the Pope (1460)
The Borgias were a notorious Italian family dedicated to power and money. Borgias held the highest positions in Europe, but their schemes and reputation inspired scathing backlash. One of the most famous of these commentaries was Machiavelli’s The Prince, based on the Borgia method of power-grabbing. But the family was great at one thing: Partying.
In 1460, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia went to a garden party in Siena. This all sounds perfectly proper, until word got out that the husbands and male relatives of female guests were banned from entering the garden. Pope Pius II got word of the party, hearing of orgies and What exactly happened inside is lost to history, but the Pope send Rodrigo a scolding letter, condemning the party with the words everyone dreads to hear from the Pope, “We are more angry than we can say.”
