Portrait of Pope Alexander VI

In the summer of 1492, as Columbus was fitting out his ships, the cardinals in Rome elected Rodrigo Borgia, and few papal elections have been remembered so badly. A Spaniard by birth, he took the name Alexander VI and ran the papacy like a family business, advancing his children Cesare and Lucrezia across the map of Italy. It was Alexander who drew the line across the newly found Atlantic world in 1494, splitting it between Spain and Portugal with a stroke of the pen. By the time he died in August 1503, probably of fever though Rome preferred the rumour of poison, he had made his son Cesare the most feared soldier in Italy, a career that collapsed within a year of his father's death.