In a world of rapid change human life, honour, and the higher sentiments are held in slight esteem; material success is the goal men strive to reach and few question the means they employ. During the late Renaissance the despot did not hesitate to remove any obstacle in the way of his progress, even when that obstacle was a near kinsman; and the act was generally connived at by the other members of the family, conscious that in those unsettled days their own position and safety depended upon the strength and astuteness of their chief. Italy was then divided into a hundred petty dukedoms and principalities, each struggling to preserve itself by annihilating its neighbour. Coalitions were constantly formed for the destruction of a state whose growing power threatened to disturb the balance, and these compacts often were broken as soon as made. Deception became a fine art, and diplomacy and duplicity were synonymous. It was this keen struggle for existence which made the Italians the most perspicacious politicians of the day. Every ruler sought to attract to his court the artist and the literary man, for he knew that the prestige gained thereby was no slight adjunct to his power, and this explains why many of the most brutal and egotistical of the princes became famous as patrons of the arts and sciences. This protection was repaid with flattery, and to what depths of sycophancy men will descend is attested by the nauseous dedications of books of the day. In 1488, when Caesar Borgia was fourteen years of age, and by the grace of Innocent VIII. a prothonotary of the Apostolic See, Paolo Pompilio dedicated his “Syllabica,” a work on rhetoric, “to the ornament and hope of the house of Borgia, the Illustrious Caesar, whose love of letters foretells the greatness that is to be his.” CHAPTER I Genealogy of the house of Borgia--Vannozza de’ Catanei--Birth of Caesar Borgia--His youth. The Spanish house of Borja, tracing its line back to 1035, claimed descent from Don Ramiro Sanchez of Aragon. A certain Don Pedro de Borja who died in 1152--the year in which Don Ricardo, a representative of the junior branch, removed to Naples--had a son, Don Ximenes Garcia de Borja, who was the founder of the senior line. His son, Gonzales Gil, was the father of Don Raymon de Borja, whose son, Don Juan Domingo de Borja, Lord of the Torre de Canals--who was living in the city of Xativa in Valencia in the fourteenth century--had by his wife, Francina de Borja, several daughters and a son Alonzo, the future Calixtus III. As early as 1233 the Borja family had won fame, for in that year eight of their name had hurried to the support of Don Jaime in his war with the Moors, and by their bravery had secured a place among the _Caballeros de la Conquista_.