WHEN RODRIGO BORGIA WAS 62, after 35 years as Cardinal and Vice-Chancellor, his character, habits, principles or lack of them, uses of power, methods of enrichment, mistresses and seven children were well enough known to his colleagues in the College and Curia to evoke from young Giovanni de’ Medici at his first conclave the comment on Borgia’s elevation to the Papacy, “Flee, we are in the hands of a wolf.”
