Beginning in 1492, two years before the outbreak of the Italian Wars (1494–1559), Rodrigo Borgia’s papacy was dominated by conflict and a consequent need to focus on temporal matters. While the Borgia popes are prominent among those who used Rome as a power base for securing family dynasties, they were far from alone in that: in a sense they were the pioneers whose eventual failure in Italy illustrated how others might succeed. This chapter reassesses Alexander VI’s papacy in comparison to those of his predecessors and successors, considering four interrelated issues that confronted him: his response to the rise of Girolamo Savonarola in Florence; his management of the defense of the Papal States; expectations of patronage; and European encounters with the New World. It considers to what extent this papacy should be regarded as a turning-point in the history of the popes. Finally, it addresses the Borgia mythology.

The chapter examines recent historiography on the Papal States and considers the different stages of its territorial formation, from the fifteenth century to the Napoleonic era. Throughout the early modern period, the Papal States maintained their composite nature; characterized by territories with strong traditions of local government, extensive feudal powers, and by the inheritance of duchies that had belonged to dynasties that had become extinct, as happened in the cases of Ferrara and Urbino. These characteristics of the papal dominions strongly determined the nature of Roman government in the localities. Control of law and order and the financial administration, themselves synonyms of “good government,” and determining factors in maintaining the consent of those under papal authority, received expression in the adaptation of norms and practices to local conditions, as can be seen in the dense correspondence between the relevant Roman Congregations and the local officers, governors, and legates.