A family businessSurrounded by the elite of Europe, Pope Alexander VI (center), né Rodrigo Borgia, dominates this detail of a 1500 painting by Cola da Orte. Among the men behind him stands his ...

But these were also the misdeeds of some of history's worst popes. There was Alexander VI, who was head of the notorious (and incestuous) criminal family that was brought so brilliantly to life by ...

There was controversy from the start with Pope Alexander VI, a wealthy Spaniard who allegedly bought the papacy by bribing his fellow electors. Alexander also saw no problem appointing many of his ...

On May 4, 1493, Pope Alexander VI published an edict dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal. In 1855 Women’s Hospital, the first hospital to be operated exclusively for women ...

But what was in the deadly poison? And why has it become infamous? In 1503, Pope Alexander VI had a bit of a problem with the Venetian cardinal. How lucky for him that the cardinal soon died of ...

Why is Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI, still viewed as a Machiavellian manipulator? By marrying into the family her father wanted to forge an alliance with, she became forever ...