The original godfather: The story of medieval Italy’s most scandalous dynasty, the Borgias makes for a racy TV series



For those still mourning the demise of The Tudors, a sumptuous new historical drama that is every bit as scandalous is about to take its place.



With a similar diet of murder, treachery and sex, The Borgias, a nine-part series starring Jeremy Irons and Joanne Whalley, looks set to fill the hole left by Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ libidinous Henry VIII.



The show is the brainchild of Neil Jordan, the Oscar-winning director of The Crying Game, who had been trying to bring the story of the corrupt and despotic Borgia family to the big screen for ten years.





The Borgias: A new series starring Jeremy Irons (left) and Lotte Verbeek (right)

The project fell through three times because of money problems, but now his vision is being realised in the £30 million television series, thanks to US network Showtime, who made The Tudors.

‘The Borgias were depicted as monsters throughout history,’ he says, ‘and I just thought if you look at them objectively, there are four or five really extraordinary people within this family and any depiction of them will be fascinating.’

Indeed, as a clan, the 15th-century Borgias are as made for TV as the Kennedys or the Tudors, with their patronage of the arts and politics tainted by their utter moral bankruptcy.

THE CHARACTERS

Lucrezia Borgia

(Holliday Grainger)

Rodrigo’s sweet daughter. Adored by her father, but nonetheless married off to the brutish Giovanni Sforza, whose family rules the state of Milan.

Cesare Borgia

(Francois Arnaud)

Forced into the priesthood by his father, Cesare sanctions heinous crimes to advance his family’s status. Adores his sister (a little too much) and is jealous of his father’s love for his brother, Juan.

Vannozza Deicattanei

(Joanne Whalley)

The ageing mother of Rodrigo’s children whose position as the family’s matriarch is threatened by the arrival of the Pope’s scheming new lover.

Juan Borgia

(David Oakes)

Appointed head of the papal army by his father, Juan is all talk and no action, preferring brothels to battles. Returns his brother’s resentment with interest. Rodrigo Borgia

(Jeremy Irons)

The patriarch of the Borgia family who goes on to become Pope Alexander VI. A man of many contradictions, he is ruthlessly ambitious, devoted to his children – and in thrall to his carnal desires.

Giulia Farnese

(Lotte Verbeek)

Rodrigo’s beautiful young mistress, who seeks to gain power and influence of her own by befriending his daughter and edging out his wife.



At the head of the family is Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia (Jeremy Irons), a man so desperate for power he enlists the help of his son, Cesare (Francois Arnaud), to bribe, scheme and murder his way to the papacy. Though a priest, the young Cesare has few qualms as he pillages his way across Rome, pausing only to harbour seemingly incestuous thoughts about his sister Lucrezia (Holliday Grainger).

When Rodrigo becomes Pope in 1492, he replaces his mistress and the mother of his children, Vannozza (Joanne Whalley), with a younger model – Giulia Farnese (Lotte Verbeek). Rodrigo then has to fight to hold onto the papacy while the dogged Cardinal Della Rovere (Colm Feore) does everything in his power to remove him.



As Rodrigo Borgia, Jeremy Irons is in turn both charming and reptilian. The 62-year-old, star of films such as Lolita and Reversal Of Fortune, takes to the role with gusto. ‘Rodrigo was a man with a great appetite,’ he says, ‘a Spaniard with a love of food, women and power. There are huge complications and inconsistencies in this man, and that is always interesting to play. But Rodrigo was also a man of God and a man who adored his children. He’s a terrific character.’



As is the role of his son, Cesare. French Canadian actor Francois Arnaud has a rollicking time, fighting, fornicating in his vestments and employing a creepy assassin, Michelotto (Sean Harris of Red Riding fame), to dispatch anyone who gets in the way of the Borgias.



‘I did read a couple of books on the subject,’ says Arnaud, ‘but they all contradict each other, so you have to find the truth in the script. But I don’t think Cesare is a coldblooded murderer – I think he’s got a logical reason for every crime he commits.’



The series is co-produced by Michael Hirst, the creator of The Tudors and a man who would have no trouble writing sex and intrigue into a church parish meeting. But while obvious parallels with The Tudors abound, a nod is also given to series such as The Sopranos and also the Godfather movies, with The Borgias’ tagline – ‘The Original Crime Family’ – framing each episode. ‘When Mario Puzo wrote The Godfather, he said, “I just took the Borgias and stuck them in Little Italy”,’ says Neil Jordan, ‘so I’ve simply taken them back home.’



The show is a far cry from the Eighties’ BBC series of the same name, which starred an almost incomprehensible Adolfo Celi and which was deemed so bad it was said to have killed off costume drama at the Beeb for almost a decade. Critics compared it unfavourably to the hit ITV period drama of the time, Brideshead Revisited – the show in which Jeremy Irons made his name.



With a second season of Neil Jordan’s Borgias having already been commissioned, it seems justice has finally been done to the scandalous tale of one of history’s most brutal families. ‘The characters are so extraordinary,’ says Jordan, ‘I just let them tell their own story.’

