You would be surprised by the strength of a desperate man.

It is the ones who keep you in thrall to more than their snatches who command the houses and the gowns to go with them. And for that they have first to love themselves.

Borgia bastard could never be the social equal of a legitimate Medici.

If you love a man for his honesty, you cannot become angry when he shows it.

When there is fear about the future, it is comforting to take it out on outsiders who can be blamed for the past.

She has never liked sleeping alone. Even as a small child, she would steel herself to brave the black soup of the room as far as her brother’s bed, creeping in beside him. And he, who when awake would rather fight than talk, would put his arms around her and stroke her hair until their warmness mingled and she fell asleep.

He spends the night in prayer. God’s voice, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, tells him what the politician in him already knows: that whatever he might stand to gain from playing one against the other, the prospect of a foreign army marching through Italy can bring only instability and devastation in its wake for all. He is, it seems, the Church’s shepherd after all.

Cesare Borgia – oh, Cesare Borgia has proved himself a great warrior.

But anyone who has been that young knows that the great grief of love is that your body feels the most when it knows the least.

Missing rubs the soul raw.