The Disappearance of Juan Borgia
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Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains mature adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. Rome, 1497. A richly attired, brutally mutilated body is pulled from the Tiber River. He would soon be identified as Juan Borgia, the son of the head of the Holy Roman Empire, Pope Alexander VI.

Stabbed as many as eight times and his throat slashed. This was no random attack. But why he was murdered and who carried it out has been the subject of speculation for over 500 years. Somebody who was killed out of jealousy on the orders of his younger brother, Geoffrey.

- Joffrey definitely had a motive. By today's standards, his wife is having an affair with the man. For some people, that would be enough to kill somebody. You're also looking at the fact that he's quite low down in the pecking order of the family. So if he gets rid of those upper tiers, he's gonna get promoted, as it were. - Others think he was murdered by the Orsini, the rival family of the Borgias dynasty.

The Orsini dynasty hated the Borgias. The Pope, his father, had a hand in the leader of the dynasty's death, and it looked like revenge. And there are those who say that his older brother, Cesare Borgia, planned his assassination. He was jealous of the honors and the titles that his father, the Pope, had bestowed upon him. And he realized the only way to get rid of his rival was in the good old Borgia tradition, murder.

Just what did happen to Juan Borgia? During the 15th century, Renaissance Italy was dominated by rich and powerful families, and one of the most notorious dynasties of the time were the Borgias. Originally from Valencia in Spain, they made a name for themselves by working their way up the ecclesiastical ranks in the Vatican.

In doing so, they'd acquired huge sums of wealth along the way and a fearsome reputation.

The Borgias are possibly one of the most powerful families that have ever lived. In today's society, we look at money and say that's what power is, but back then, religion, politics, money were all the same thing. You can't separate religion from politics. So if you really want to be the top man, you've got to be the Pope. And if you are the Pope, you are the most powerful man there is. The Borgias were a Spanish family in Renaissance Italy. They furnished two popes.

and they were, I suppose you could say, the precursor of the Mafia. They were the byword for avarice, pride, intrigue, murder, and depravity. These are not the qualities you would expect of religious leaders.

But despite their reputation, Rodrigo Borgia was the second member of his family to be elected pontiff. Such was the influence they wielded. He had been introduced to the church by his uncle, Alfonso Borgia, better known as Pope Calixtus III, who had made Rodrigo a cardinal. Rodrigo was a skilled negotiator and politician who had studied law.

It was alleged at the time that he had gained votes through bribery and blackmail. Today we think of the Pope as being a holy man, obviously that's why he's the Pope. But in those days they were red in tooth and claw. They were the most ambitious people on earth because actually in those days the Pope was the most powerful person on earth. And so all power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. And they were pretty damn corrupt.

In 1492, he became Pope Alexander VI, leader of the Roman Catholic Church. But his reign was marred by scandal and controversy. He spent excessively and was known to have relationships with several women. If you had papal infallibility, as Pope Alexander VI did, he could literally do anything and claim, well, God made me do it. Rodrigo Borgia became the Pope. Alexander VI...

and like, I think, a third of the College of Cardinals had mistresses and children. But all of the popes before him referred to their illegitimate children as nieces and nephews. But it just goes to show what this guy was made of, 'cause he was quite happy to let people know that he actually sired at least eight children. And so this guy,

Didn't care what anybody thought of him. He was all-powerful. He was the Pope. While still a Cardinal, he had carried on an illicit relationship with a woman called Venazza de Catane, with whom he had fathered four children, a daughter named Lucrezia and three sons, Geoffrey, Cesare and Giovanni.

But not only had illegitimate children, as lots of popes did, but openly declared that he had illegitimate children. Now that shows you the sort of power that a pope has. Most popes as we know now obviously aren't supposed to have any relations at all, let alone children. Yet it shows you the corruption that carried on at that time in history and throughout the church. The pope was all-powerful. He was God's anointed.

on this planet, put here by God to rule all of us. And certainly Alexander VI realized the power that he got and he used it, not always in the best way. Alexander used his position as Pope to further his and his family's personal fortune. He gave his children titles, land, and vast amounts of wealth, the majority of which went to Giovanni.

Pope Alexander had a desire to magnify all of his eight children and he did this openly. In any way that he could find, he would put them, for want of a better word, at the top of the ladder and woe betide anyone who got in the way. He had one favourite and his name was Giovanni, often known as Juan.

He set up a special papal duchy for him. He also made him Captain General.

This is a man who thought he almost was godlike. He's a man who thinks of himself as quite possibly being a star. He's untouchable. His dad's the Pope. Who's going to do anything to him? This is a man who can't be attacked, he can't be prosecuted, he can't be blamed for anything. He's got a get-out-of-jail-free card for everything.

Almost certainly, Giovanni was not a holy man, rather like his father, the Pope. He partied hard like we all did. He had guards at his command to take out his enemies whenever he wanted. He just loved it. Giovanni seems to have been Alexander's favorite son. However, his admiration was not shared by others. He was noted for his arrogance, rudeness, and debauched lifestyle.

It was reported by many chroniclers of the age that he spent the majority of his time drinking, gambling and visiting brothels. Young Giovanni had a habit of upsetting people. He was arrogant and he just had an ability of putting people's backs up, to say the least. He, of all the Borgias, was the one that people

I would say disliked more than anybody else and for that reason made many enemies. Giovanni could even count his own sister-in-law among his many relationships. Sancia of Aragon was the daughter of Alfonso II of Naples. She had married the much younger Gioffre Borgia when he was only 12 years old. The marriage was a political one arranged by Pope Alexander in exchange for her hand and a large dowry.

Alexander agreed to support Alfonso's claim to the throne of Naples. Despite his behavior, it seemed as if Giovanni could do no wrong. To celebrate all the honors that his father had heaped on him, his mother threw a party for him.

He and his brothers and some other relatives and obviously lots of other nobles went along to this grand do. And when they left, he rode off with his servants and a couple of his brothers and some of the others. And somewhere along the road, he decided to break off from the main party.

It was reported that Giovanni had told the others that he was off to find further pleasures, possibly referring to one of the many brothels he frequented. Giovanni never did return home. His father, the Pope, was concerned to say the least, but not too concerned at the beginning because he knew his son only too well and presumed that he'd visited a young lady or had gone to a party and stayed over.

It was the next day when he still didn't return that father started, for want of a better word, to get a little worried. At first, no one suspected anything was wrong. It wasn't unusual for Giovanni to go missing when he was out partaking in the delights that Rome had to offer. The Pope sent out everybody, really. He pulled out all the plugs and just saying, "That's it. I need to know what's happened." It was his favorite son after all.

He instigated a 300-strong search party. Eventually, a search party sent by the Vatican made a gruesome discovery. The following day, a body was dragged out of the Tiber. It had several knife wounds and the throat had been cut, and it was Giovanni.

The interesting thing when they found his body was that he hadn't actually been robbed. What proved it really to be some form of assassination was he still had everything. He still had his money, he still had his clothes, he still had his dagger attached to him as well. With Giovanni having made so many enemies, there are plenty of suspects to choose from. But many people now believe that his brother Cesare may have been behind the brutal killing.

Author and historian Richard Felix believes that jealousy and greed may have been the motive for murder. Cesare was extremely jealous of his brother Giovanni. He was jealous of the honors and the titles that his father the Pope had bestowed upon him. And he realized the only way to get rid of his rival was in the good old Borgia tradition, murder.

He hired two assassins. They attacked Giovanni on the road. They stabbed him several times in the stomach and then delivered the coup de grace and they slit his throat from ear to ear. And then they threw his body in the River Tiber.

I think the real motive, if Cesare did it, was jealousy. He was extremely jealous of his brother, who the Pope had bestowed all manner of titles on him, money. He was allowed as many mistresses as he wanted. And yet poor old Cesare really was always the underdog. And there's no doubt about it that Cesare had murderous intentions.

Cesare wouldn't have committed the murder himself, but he certainly had the wherewithal to be able to do it. He had the money, he had the motive, and he knew plenty of people that he could call on. He was a Borgia.

Since childhood, Cesare had been close friends with a man known as Micoletto Corella. He was a kind of condottieri, a type of professional mercenary who had been employed by Cesare throughout his military career. Corella owed everything he had to Cesare and proved his gratitude on several occasions by ruthlessly murdering his enemies when ordered.

It seemed possible that Cesare's envy could have driven him to organize the murder of his brother. He certainly had a lot to gain from his death in terms of land, wealth and title. But what would a modern-day lawyer, forensic pathologist and criminal psychologist make of this theory? Professor Michael Green is a former British government pathologist with over 40 years of crime scene experience.

Would there have been any way of determining how many people were involved in the actual murder?

The only way you can tell how many people were involved is from disturbance of the scene and things like boot marks. You might be able to tell how many people. If it was very obvious from the pattern and the appearance of the stab wounds that more than one knife had been used, you could say that more than one person was involved. But I think that's the best you could do and it would only be informed guesswork.

Could the favoritism that Pope Alexander showed Giovanni have caused Cesare to go to such extremes? Dr. Kieran O'Keefe is a criminal psychologist who assesses the methods and motives behind crimes such as murder.

If you've got a family situation where one sibling is a particular favourite, it can create a lot of animosity to the other siblings. When we talk about people who commit crime and look at reasons for them committing a crime in childhood, one thing we talk about is maternal disruption or even family disruption.

And an aspect of that is maternal attachment or even paternal attachment. If there's a disruption to a typical loving relationship that you would have with a father or mother, then it can affect them in terms of mulling over in terms of revenge fantasies. They either play out those revenge fantasies against somebody else

or against the person that's responsible for the disruption to attachment, so either the father or mother, or they'll see the person responsible as being that sibling. And so they'll play out their fantasy and kill that sibling.

It's not surprising if you take that idea and add the jealousy factor as well, which would have been rife in that particular family, and add that, that would have fueled fantasies of murder as well. But because you've got jealousy, I'm not surprised that that was the end point. Would jealousy and sibling rivalry be enough reason for someone to murder their own brother? Andrew Rose is a former lawyer in the United Kingdom.

He has both defended and prosecuted at numerous criminal trials over his career. Jealousy is a frequent motive for murder. It could be sexual jealousy, jealousy of the power of somebody, all sorts of jealousies leading up to a desire to kill somebody. It's not, I think, at all unusual that this should be so. And sometimes motives can be mixed. It's very difficult sometimes to compartmentalize these things because all sorts of factors can apply.

in motivating somebody to kill somebody else. But jealousy is a jolly powerful motive. It certainly seems like Cesare would have had the motive to want Giovanni dead. But he wasn't the only family member to bear a grudge against him. Geoffrey Borgia, the youngest brother, had equally as much reason to hate Giovanni. But would he have ordered his murder? At New Balance, we believe if you run, you're a runner.

Ross Andrews is an author and researcher of historical mysteries.

He believes that Joffrey may have had his brother killed because of an affair he was having with his wife.

Now in Giovanni's death, we have one of the greatest and grisly murder mysteries throughout the whole of history. This is a man who's had his throat slit, he's been stabbed about eight times, he's been thrown into the river Tiber, and to make sure they've even weighed him down using rocks. This is obviously a hit. Now, our prime suspect is probably Geoffrey due to the fact that he has means, he has method, and most definitely has motive.

It's not as if Joffrey can even ignore what's been going on. And with Giovanni, we have a man that will openly flaunt whatever he's doing. He thinks he's untouchable. He thinks he can get away with anything he wants. So he can get completely drunk and sleep with whoever he wants and nothing can happen. It's not like Joffrey can just walk away and ignore what's happening.

Now, with all murder mysteries throughout the whole of history, you've got to look at means, method, motive, and try and find out who's done this. Now, Joffrey definitely had a motive. By today's standards, his wife is having an affair with the man. For some people, that would be enough to kill somebody. You're also looking at the fact that he's quite low down in the pecking order of the family. So if he gets rid of those upper tiers, he's going to get promoted, as it were.

Now, does he have means and method? Well, certainly he knows that he's going to be at this family gathering. So he knows where he's going to be. His guard is going to be down. He's highly likely to be drunk. It presents with a fantastic means there because when he leaves, he dismisses all of his staff, which is the perfect opportunity to try and get rid of him. So if anybody is on our prime list of suspects, Joffrey has to be right up there near the top.

Could the indignation of his wife's affair with his brother have driven Geoffrey to murder?

We've already got jealousy of a sibling who seems to be favored. Now we've got jealousy added in terms of a relationship that's going on that's inappropriate. I could imagine the jealousy building up. It's part of what I talk about in terms of Athens stage theory and there's something to do with what we say is symbolic interactionism. That maybe it's not about a genetic predisposition, maybe it's not about

you know, a psychological predisposition. Maybe it's not about the upbringing or the environment. Maybe it's simply about social interaction. And the social interaction would have been this affair that was going on and the jealousy that was felt in terms of that particular relationship. And that could be building up and fuelling fantasies to try and resolve that in some way or at least take the attention away from that particular person or from the brother.

Reportedly, Giovanni was less than discreet about their liaisons.

Geoffrey ordered the hit. His wife is having an affair. The tipping point is really when he finds out that Giovanni is actually the one that she's sleeping with. Giovanni could even turn around to his younger brother and say, "I don't care what you think. I'm going to be doing this anyway." This is a man who thinks he can get away with anything. So, Geoffrey's stuck being humiliated with the whole court, as it were, and society laughing in his face. But despite what he had done, he was still Geoffrey's brother.

So would he have really wanted him dead? Merging within families does occur, plainly. I don't think it's particularly frequent, but obviously within the family there are motivations, tensions and opportunities for people to advance themselves as they see it, and if they have a ruthless disposition, they may want to carry it into action. It's an unfortunate aspect of the human condition.

And of course with family members, you know so much more about their habits and personalities. An opportunity for covering up your tracks if you're being evilly minded is that much greater because you know how things operate within your particular family unit. It seems as if Giovanni's actions would have given Geoffrey a motive for murder. But it wasn't just people in his own family who wanted him dead. There were other powerful families in Rome who wanted him to disappear too.

and none more so than the house of Orsini. Lynne Picknett is an author and historical researcher. She believes that Giovanni was the victim of a plot between his own siblings and long-term rivals of the Borgias, the powerful Orsini family. Giovanni attended a party thrown in his honor. That was the last time he was seen alive. Just two days later, his body was pulled from the River Tiber, horribly mutilated. It was an assassination.

Who could have done it? Almost certainly it was the Orsini family, but they couldn't have done it without some inside help. The finger points at his own family. There'll be lots of people who wanted him dead.

but there were standout suspects. The main one was the Orsini dynasty because the Pope, his father, had a hand in the leader of the dynasty's death several months before in jail. He had basically colluded with King Ferdinand II of Naples in having Virginio, the leader of the Orsinis, imprisoned and he died in prison very suspiciously, presumably poisoned.

1494, King Charles VIII of France invaded Rome. He demanded that the Pope recognize his claim to the throne of Naples and attempted to overthrow Alfonso II in the hope of securing further land for his family. Virginio Orsini had assisted Charles VIII in his conquest, but when the French were defeated, Alfonso imprisoned Virginio for his betrayal.

It was said that, with the Pope's blessing, Virginio was then poisoned.

People were pointing the finger towards the Pope. So basically, there was the much-loathed son of a much-loathed Pope. And it looked like revenge. But there was a huge element of inside information about this. You know, they knew where he was riding to, even though he changed his plans at the last minute. It's very likely that there was somebody else, perhaps in Giovanni's own household or in his mother's household, who basically gave them information.

There's always the possibility that one or more of his brothers also gave information to the Orsini's because they really wanted their brother dead.

Cesare had been standing on the sidelines watching his father, the Pope, heap honours and status and you name it on his favourite son, Giovanni. And all the time there's Cesare thinking, "No, that's mine, that's mine, I want that. Why don't I get any of this?" So the ultimate sibling rivalry could have been behind the death of his brother.

There have been quite a lot of suggestion that in fact Joffrey had a hand in the assassination of Giovanni. It's often said that Giovanni made fast and loose with the wife of his brother Joffrey.

Now he could have colluded with the Orsini dynasty to have him assassinated. Nothing surprises one about politics in those days. You might think on paper, well, you know, what would a bourgeoisie be doing colluding with an Orsini? Indeed. But if there was something in it for them at the time, why not?

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As far as the rivalry between the Borgias and the Orsinis, this is pretty...

typical of Italian history of that period. Clearly it does persist to this day. We know there are rivalries between family groups within the mafiosi structure, I think in Italy you'll find that, and in areas where there are family blood feuds which go on for centuries, generations in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. These are deeply embedded in human nature and almost impossible to eradicate.

By killing Giovanni in such a brutal way, were the Orsini trying to send a message to Pope Alexander? We're trying to go with the theory that the killing of Juan was a message that was sent between the families. We'd have to look at how the body was found.

Was the body concealed in any way? And when we talk about psychological profiling and looking at killers, we talk about abduction site and dump site. So where is the person abducted? And then where are they killed? And then where is the body dumped? If you're sending a message, then the body would be easily found. If the body was easily found...

then yes, potentially what we're looking at is a message that's being sent. If it's been concealed in any way and there's an element of not wanting the body to be discovered, then no, it's not a message. Unless the message you want to give is that Juan has gone missing. But ultimately, if you're not owning up to that, if you're not showing that there's a body, then really you're just creating doubt about has he run off, has he had an accident, anything. So the body would have to be easily found for it to be a message.

Could it be possible that one of his brothers, along with the Orsini family, put aside their rivalry to work together in getting rid of a common enemy? Giovanni's death would have been of mutual benefit to both parties, each of whom were well known for their ruthless and cutthroat ways. But when all the theories and evidence are taken into account, what are we left with? There is no doubt that Giovanni was murdered, but who did it?

And what was their motivation? With so many people having grievances against him, it's hard to separate the innocent from the guilty. Could Cesare, angry and hurt by his father's constant favoritism of Giovanni, have carefully planned the death of his own brother? Was Geoffrey so enraged that his wife was having an affair with his brother that he hired assassins to murder Giovanni?

Or did the Orsini dynasty, with the help of Giovanni's own family, kill the favorite son of the Pope and throw his body into the river? With over 500 years having passed since the events took place, it's hard to separate fact from fiction. But is there any conclusive evidence that points the finger at the real person behind the murder of Giovanni Borgia? Do the details of the murder tell us anything about the motive behind the attack?

When we look at psychological profiling and the idea that you can look at a crime scene and how a body is left at a crime scene and get an idea of the motivation for the murder, and we apply it to this particular case where the body was found with multiple stab wounds but without any of the money taken,

The immediate thing that jumps to mind is that the motivation is a personal one and that it's a revenge one. In this particular case, the anger

and the revenge is focused on that particular individual. And that would be an immediate motivation that we would say is occurring, just because of the number of stab wounds. If it's a single wound, then it would be for other particular reasons. And if it was a single wound, we'd either look at an assassination attempt or straightaway I'd be saying, you know, "Is there money? Has there money been taken?"

Simple as that. But because you've got multiple stab wounds, immediately I think, yeah, personal nature and anger and revenge of some sort. Will we ever know the exact reason why Giovanni was killed? In the case of Juan Borges, it's particularly difficult. The trails are so tangled. There was motivation from a number of angles here. A number of parties could have been responsible for his death. There may even have been parties of which we know not. He may have offended somebody, a slight,

Honor played a great part in life in Italy at that time. This could have led to a murder. It's a fascinating case, but I don't think it'll ever be solved conclusively. Renaissance Rome, and in particular the Vatican, was a place of politics, scandal, and intrigue. Those involved at the highest levels of office rarely got there solely on their religious merits. And the Borgias were no exception.

Giovanni's father had given him everything he desired and more than he deserved. But despite the favors bestowed upon him, Giovanni continued to cause upset and make powerful enemies. Giovanni's affair with Joffre's wife would have given him ample motive to want Giovanni dead. However, his marriage to Sancia was one of convenience rather than love.

and Geoffrey was only 15 years old at the time and reportedly uninterested in his wife. It seems unlikely that he would have gone so far as to organize the murder of his brother.

Sancha of Aragon was, even by the standards of the courts then, rather loose in her morals. Cesare, on the other hand, was known to be an accomplished murderer. He had grown tired of his brother's public antics and accused him of embarrassing the family and bringing the Borgia name into disrepute. He was also said to be jealous of the favors their father showed Giovanni. Favors that, with Giovanni out of the way,

would now fall on him. Cesare was never happy with all the honors and titles and status heaped on his brother. Cesare, therefore, does seem to be the most likely suspect. But did he act alone? Pope Alexander had had a long-running feud with the Orsinis. They had been involved in a power struggle for the Kingdom of Naples, which was an Orsini stronghold.

Five months before Giovanni's death, it was reported that Pope Alexander had ordered the murder of Virginio Orsini, a leading member of the family. It would not have been unrealistic to consider the possibility that Cesare and the Orsinis conspired together to assassinate Giovanni. But the death of his son had a lasting impact on the Pope.

The Pope went into severe mourning. He was absolutely devastated at the death of his favorite son, and he blamed himself. He thought that this was God's way of punishing him for his life of debauchery. The Pope eventually died of a mystery illness, some say as a result of being poisoned. Now, without the protection of his father,

Cesare, who would assume Giovanni's role as head of the papal army, lost the backing of the Vatican. When Pope Julius II was voted in, he stripped Cesare of his honors, forcing him to flee to Pamplona in Spain, where he was given work as a military commander by one of his few remaining allies. And in 1507, while leading his soldiers in a small skirmish, Cesare was fatally wounded by a spear.

His body was taken to a small church in the town of Viana, Portugal, where with little ceremony, he was buried along with what was left of the Borgia dynasty.