The Borgias: A Very Controversial Family
But how many of the rumors were true?
Leonardo da Vinci first met Cesare Borgia in 1499 when the notorious adventurer accompanied Louis XII of France on his invasion of Milan, ruled at the time by Leonardo’s patron Ludovico Sforza.
Borgia was a fascinating figure — an exquisitely dressed and handsome young man who knew how to charm, despite his reputation for audacity, cruelty and licentiousness. He soon realized that Leonardo’s extraordinary genius as inventor and engineer would be invaluable to him in his military campaigns, and later invited him to become his military engineer and architect.
Leonardo was in Borgia’s service from the summer of 1502 to February 1503, designing fortifications, inventing weapons and preparing military maps as he moved with the army through the Romagna, to the east and north-east of Florence. In his notebooks, Leonardo makes no reference at all to the appalling acts of violence committed all round him during those months.
Leonardo would certainly have been aware that three members of the Borgia family — Cesare, his sister Lucrezia and his father Pope Alexander VI — were…
