Word: borgia
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...BORGIA TESTAMENT (312 pp.)-Nigel Balchin-Houghton Mifflin...
...ever equaled Cesare Borgia's record for quick promotion. Cesare was the bastard son of Vatican Vice-Chancellor Rodrigo Borgia and his mistress Vanozza de Catanei. When he was only six, he was made Canon of Valencia. At 15, he became Bishop of Pamplona; at 16, archbishop of Valencia; at 17, a cardinal. Only the papal throne itself stood ahead of young Cardinal Borgia, but since that was now occupied by his crafty father (who had become Pope Alexander VI), the frustrated youngster started looking around for other worlds to conquer...
Dreamy Lad. British Novelist Nigel Balchin (The Small Back Room; Mine Own Executioner) doesn't know all the answers, and doesn't much care. In Borgia Testament, which pretends to be an "autobiography" written by Cesare shortly before his death, Novelist Balchin is mainly interested in trotting out a brand-new explanation of Cesare's willful ways. In Balchin's view, Cesare was a man of vision, born before his time, who hoped to do what Garibaldi finally accomplished-unite all Italy...
...order to achieve this plan, Author Balchin believes, that Cesare schemed and wheedled troops from the French and raised his private horde of Swiss and Italian bandits. While his satiated father sat back weakly on his throne (some historians think, on the contrary, that Borgia senior was quite handy at murder), son Cesare stormed and conquered numerous fortresses in Italy. Men who got in his way were ruthlessly disposed of by his Spanish henchman, Don Michelotto, or quietly turned over to his bland and terrifying secretary, Agapito, who, in Author Balchin's version, sounds comically like P. G. Wodehouse...
There is a descendant of Charlemagne, Lucrezia Borgia, Mary Queen of Scots, William the Silent, Vladimir of Russia, Geoffrey Chaucer, Pierre de Ronsard, Diane de Poitiers, Agnes Sorel and 1,048,567 other traceable ancestors, who frequently breaks 70 on the golf links. Three years ago he donated a silver cup-La Coupe du Roi des Beiges, for a tournament at Onex, Switzerland-and last year he won the cup himself. This year he reached the quarter finals of the amateur championship in Paris. Other members of the Onex club hail Leopold III, King of the Belgians, as "a perfect...