It was the age of Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo, of enlightened creativity and unparalleled intellectual achievement. But it was also the age of Machievelli, of rampant lawlessness, incessant war, and unspeakable depravity. At the heart of the world order was the Vatican, the arbiter of conflicts between kingdoms and empires. And at the center of the Vatican was a man whose quest for power would propel him to seek the ultimate prize, the holy see of Rome. He was a man whose name would become synonymous with ruthlessness, and whose reign as Pope would be remembered as the most infamous chapter of the history of the Catholic church, Rodrigo Borgia. His four children -Juan, the oldest, a prideful, lazy, unscrupulous sexual predator, Cesare, a young man torn between a faith that was not his calling and his dark violent nature, Lucretia, a young girl discovering the secret power that a women's sexuality holds, and Goffredo, an innocent child who would come of age in a family riven by ... Written by Tom Fontana
I first started watching The Borgias made by Showtime; I quickly lost interest. They spent no time on the give and take negotiating and within an hour you see a very corrupt new pope already in and out of bed running around with several whores. It was kind of ridiculous the way Pope Alexander was introduced.
Borgia, a multi-country collaboration, starts off slower and we are introduced to a real man that is shrewd at bargaining. We watch a character arch that becomes more and more powerful, thus ruthless. The arch is shown with all the characters. This production is more engrossing, the writing is so much better.