An imagined gathering
1502 · Rome, Italy
Cesare Borgia hosts his father and Machiavelli and lays out the campaign that is remaking the Romagna.
Cesare has taken a palace for the winter and means to be seen in it. The table is set for a duke, not a cardinal's son, and the guests are the two men he most wants to impress: his father, whose money and authority make the campaign possible, and Machiavelli, whose republic is watching the Romagna with alarm.
Cesare talks of the towns he has taken and the lords he has broken, and of the difficulty of holding what you win. He is frank about the methods he has used and impatient with anyone who pretends not to understand them. Alexander listens with amusement; Machiavelli listens with the attention of a man taking notes. Lasagne, a rolled roast, artichokes, and a pine nut tart carry the evening.
Host: Cesare Borgia
Pope Alexander VI — The pope, and the source of Cesare's money and authority.
Niccolò Machiavelli — The Florentine envoy whose report on Cesare will echo for centuries.
First course
a period dish
a period dish
Dessert
a period dish
Drink
a period dish
Cesare Borgia
The mercenary captains who sold their armies to the Italian states and who, Machiavelli argued, could never be trusted.
Caterina Sforza
The campaigns that redrew the Romagna as popes, condottieri, and foreign armies fought over its cities.
Niccolò Machiavelli
Machiavelli's short book on how a new ruler should win and hold a state, and why it has been read as both a manual and a warning.
This gathering is an editorial recreation grounded in the biographies of those present; it did not necessarily take place as described.