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On the morning of August 11, 1492, Rodrigo Borgia was elected Pope, taking the name Alexander VI and yelling “I am Pope! I am Pope!” The throngs of Romans in the Piazza di San Pietro shared in his excitement. But for some, the Papal Election of 1492 seemed to indicate the downfall of the papacy, if not the end of days. Giovanni de Medici is recorded as saying, “Now we are in the power of a wolf, the most rapacious, perhaps that this world has ever seen; and if we do not flee, he will infallibly devour us.” Gian Andrea Boccaccio wrote in a letter to the Duke of Ferrara, “ten Papacies would not suffice to satisfy the greed of all his kindred.” Ferrante, King of Naples, purportedly told his wife, “This election will not only undermine the peace of Italy, but that of the whole of Christendom.” The priest and prognosticator Girolamo Savonarola would spend the last year of his life trying to render the 1492 Papal election void due to simony, a campaign that resulted in his excommunication, torture, and execution. What was it about the Papal Election of 1492 and its resultant Pontiff, Alexander VI, that elicited such a dramatic range of reactions? As it turns out, this question is difficult to answer but it involves assassination, simony, nepotism, accusations of poison, coercion, abuse, incest, wildly debauched orgies, and political corruption.
