In the Pillory

<p></p><p><em>In In the Pillory: The Tale of the Borgia Pope John Bond revisits the controversial papacy of Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) one of the most notorious figures of the Renaissance Church. </em>With meticulous research and a critical eye Bond situates Alexander within the complex political and cultural networks of late fifteenth-century Italy exploring how ambition family alliances and ecclesiastical corruption shaped his reign. Far from a simple tale of vice this study places the Borgia pope in the pillory of history weighing contemporary accusations against archival evidence and recent scholarship. The result is a nuanced portrait of a pontiff whose legacy oscillates between scandal and statecraft revealing broader insights into the entanglement of religion power and spectacle at the dawn of modern Europe.</p>