narrator: in august of 1492, 23 cardinals must elect a new pope who will lead more catholics than the world has ever known. the cardinals will live in the sistine chapel until they finally decide who s pope. so it s a very intense hot house. narrator: every powerful italian family has a seat at the table and a horse in the race. the two most powerful factions in this conclave, one was led by a cardinal named sforza. his primary rival was julian know della rovere. juliano dell rove ra rovere, nephew of sixtus iv has inherited his uncle blind
flourishes under the della rovere pope and the papacy becomes more stronger and powerful than ever. he s a warrior pope who actually goes into battle leading his own soldiers wearing silver armor. to aggrandize himself to a certain extent but vision of a papacy that has to be underpinned by power. pope julius ii continues flaunting the power of the papacy until his death in 1513. by then another powerful italian family has been patiently plotting to take over the papal throne, and the young banking heir will take renaissance opulence to levels of excess from which the church may never recover. you ve had quite the career.
yooesh lucretia borgia was a whore sleeping with her father and brother. there was no evidence of that. it doesn t mean it didn t happen but it s like tabloid journalism. once the mud has been slung, it sticks. narrator: pope julius ii continues to slander the borgia name and proclaims their behavior so disgusting that the part of the vatican they lived in must be closed off. julius ii had the borgia apartments sealed up. so contaminated by evil presences that nobody should go there. they stayed sealed until the 19th century and now they re a today over 5 million people
church. he took the office which he had hungered for by the force of his ability to intimidate and almost immediately became a kind of egomaniac. narrator: pope julius ii, still driven by spite and vengeance makes it his personal mission to destroy everything his nemesis built. starting with borgia s son cesar zbler e. cesare was given the keys to the kingdom. after he becomes pope, julius ii has cesare borgia thrown in prison, stripped of his title and eventually killed. della rovere devoted himself to blackening the reputation of the borgia s family. the rumors started that lieu
world has ever known and reigning over one of the most depraved papacys in vatican history, the borgia pope contract mass lair ya as malari dies. a mosquito bites someone and 11 years of trying to build a dynasty collapses. it s gone and within a year the arch enemy has taken the papacy. narrator: just three months after his death, rodrigo borgia s arch rival, jewgiulian della rovere becomes pope julius ii. della rovere was not chosen by the college of cardinals that saw in him a holy man suited to be the leader of the universal