Add MS 8362

LIFE OF POPE ALEXANDER VI: biography of Pope Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia (1431-1503), and his son, Cesare Borgia, Duc de Valentinois (1475-1507); 18th cent. Italian. This biography has the title, 'Vita di Don Rodrigo Borgia poi Pontefice Allesandro VI e del Duca Valentino suo Figlio Cavata da un manoscritto antico della Biblioteca Vaticana' (f. 1); inc. 'Avendo Goffredo Borgia Padre Don Rodrigo fatte molte caravane', ends 'con sodisfazione d'ambe le Parti'. It is apparently one of many copies (e.g. Rome, Bibliotheca Vallicellana, P. 201) of a spurious, anonymous biography, with the title, 'Life of Don Roderigo Borgia, afterwards pope Alexander VI, and of Cesar Borgia and brothers, sons of the above said Pontiff, together with the Memoirs of the most hidden events that took place during the above-said Pontificate, the whole of it drawn from the manuscripts of the Vatican Library'; see P. de Roo, Material for a History of Pope Alexander VI his Relatives and his Time, ii (Bruges, 1924), pp. 39-55. De Roo, who describes the claim that the biography was derived from Vatican Library manuscripts as 'simply an untruth', also says that the work contains, 'many incredible or, at least, impossible details' and is, 'as full of glaring anachronisms as of manifest wickedness'. See also O. Ferrara, The Borgia Pope. Alexander the Sixth (1942), pp. 19-21. Armorial bookplate of the Hon. Frederick North, later 5th Earl of Guilford, with shelfmark L/19/A (f. i). '58' in pencil in upper left corner of f. ii. Purchased from R. H. Evans, 8 December 1830, lot 580 (part).

Paper; ff. ii+163. 262 x 190mm. Quarter binding of red leather, gold-tooled spine with covers of marbled paper over pasteboard, early 19th cent.