An imagined gathering
1498 · Rome, Italy
Alexander VI dines with his son Cesare, the Florentine envoy Machiavelli, and the young Copernicus, and the talk turns to power and the heavens.
The papal apartments are crowded with the business of the Curia, and Alexander has set a table for four in a smaller room. Cesare has come from the camp with dust on his boots; Machiavelli is in Rome on a diplomatic errand and has been watching the Borgias closely; Copernicus, in Italy to study law and medicine, has been brought along by a common friend.
The pope is an easy host and a formidable one, and the conversation moves from the Romagna to the reform of the calendar to the question of whether the Earth can really be the center of things. Copernicus says almost nothing about his own ideas. Over tortellini in broth, roast pigeon, and mushrooms, the old cardinal's son and the young canon take each other's measure.
Host: Pope Alexander VI
Cesare Borgia — The pope's son, lately returned from the Romagna campaign.
Niccolò Machiavelli — Florentine envoy, observing the Borgias for his republic.
Nicolaus Copernicus — A canon from Warmia, in Italy to study law and astronomy.
a period dish
Dessert
a period dish
Drink
a period dish
Pope Alexander VI
The territories the popes ruled directly, and the military and diplomatic power that came with them.
Pope Alexander VI
The practice of advancing relatives to wealth and office, which the Borgia papacy raised to a system.
Cesare Borgia
The mercenary captains who sold their armies to the Italian states and who, Machiavelli argued, could never be trusted.
Nicolaus Copernicus
The claim that the Sun, not the Earth, sits at the center of the planetary system — and the slow, contested work of making it fit observation.
This gathering is an editorial recreation grounded in the biographies of those present; it did not necessarily take place as described.