
Watch The Borgias
- TV-MA
- 2011
- 3 Seasons
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7.9 (50,970)
The Borgias is a series on Showtime following the life and times of the Borgia family in fifteenth century Italy. While based on historical events, the show takes a lot of artistic license, making it more of a historical drama than a documentary. The series starts in the year 1492 with the election of Rodrigo Borgia to the papacy. He becomes Pope Alexander VI. The series focuses on Rodrigo and his four children. Cesare Borgia, the oldest, serves the church to please his father, but has a dark, violent side. His interests lie more in warfare, but his younger brother Juan has been given command of the Papal forces. Their younger sister Lucrezia and youngest brother Gioffre are also followed. The first season of the show focuses on the efforts of the family to identify and eliminate their enemies in the College of Cardinals. Their greatest enemy, Cardinal Della Rovere soon travels to France and convinces the French king to conquer the Italian city-states and depose the pope. In the meantime, Pope Alexander negotiates two marriages for Lucrezia and Gioffre that are meant to solidify military and political support for his papacy. By the second season of the show, Lucrezia's marriage has been annulled and last-minute political maneuvering has saved Alexander's papacy. The show deals with the inner conflicts between the family members and the political fall out from their deals to save Rome. Throughout this, the siblings and their parents fall in love, get into fights, and assassinate their enemies.