City of God A Novel of the Borgias Author:Cecelia Holland Rome at the turn of the 16th century-- a city of opulence, intrigue, and lust-- the worldly and decadent "City of God." This is the Rome of the Borgias, where Pope Alexander VI holds court with his mistress, the divine Giulia, at his side; where his daughter Lucrezia, twice- widowed at the age of twenty, consoles herself (it is said) in her brot... more »her's arms; where the once lovely and powerful Caterina Sforza now keeps company with rats in the putrid dungeons of Sant' Angelo, awaiting her freedom-- or the garrotte; where each restless night conceals extravagant amusements, dangerous trysts, and murderous betrayals along the dark banks of the Tiber; where Spanish, French, and Papal forces plot and counterplot for control of the cities and wealth of Italy.
The great warlord Cesare Borgia-- the Pope's illegitimate son-- marches his army through Tuscany and Umbria, using pillage, extortion, and terror to consolidate the Papal holdings. Secretly in Cesare's employ, and the hidden genius behind certain of his most outrageous exploits, is the strange, compelling figure of Nicholas Dawson: secretary to the Florentine ambassador, spy for the Borgias, go- between for the Spaniards, brilliant political tactician, instinctual opportunist-- a man of great ability, little real achievement, and no true allegiance. Seemingly disinterested, as if these grand manipulations are only moves in an amusing game in which nothing really matters, and alone except for a man he loves but fears he cannot rely on, Dawson insinuates himself into the midst of this desperate crisis of power. Coolly analytical and calculating, both attracted to and repelled by all that the Borgias represent, he comes to embody the serious search for values in a world where no one can be trusted, where everyone is a pawn, an instrument, in someone else's designs.
In this, her eleventh and most remarkable novel, Cecelia Holland, whom The New York Times calls "a literary phenomenon," makes real to us a moment in history that is extraordinary in its brutal and complex glamour.« less