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For the Italian comune and town, see Borgia (CZ)

Borja (better known by the Italian spelling of the name, Borgia) was an influential Spanish family during the Renaissance. Callixtus III was a Borgia and a pope. His nephew, Alexander VI, also a pope, was a brilliant man notorious for his unpontifical private life. Alexander's illegitimate children included Cesare Borgia, a political operator and intriguer, and Lucrezia Borgia, married to the Duke of Ferrara and a patron of learning and art. The Borgias legendarily poisoned people to gain political advantage and wealth, although little documentary evidence for this exists. A later member of this family, Francis Borgia, was canonized as a saint.

Although the Borgia family is closely associated with the Italian Renaissance, they were of Spanish origin and the name is of Valencian/Catalan origin; the family used the Valencian language among themselves, for privacy, even in Italy. There is a town in Spain called Borja which is the seat of the Camp de Borja comarca, in the province of Zaragoza in Aragon. But the Borjas themselves were Valencian.

Alexander VI created for Giovanni Borgia the title duke of Gandía, a Valencian fief he purchased from King Ferdinand II of Aragon.

The following members of the Borgia or Borja family have individual entries:

• Pope Callixtus III (born "Alfons de Borja (Italian Alfonso di Borgia)" and his nephew:
• Pope Alexander VI (born "Roderic de Borja (Italian Rodrigo Borgia)" and Alexander's well-known children:
• Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandia
• Cesare Borgia, made archbishop of Valencia and duke of Borja, in Aragon
• Lucrezia Borgia
• Giovanni Borgia, the Infans Romanus
• Saint Francis Borgia

The world-famous Spanish operatic soprano, Lucrezia Bori, whose real surname was Borja and who came from Valencia, was always said to belong to a collateral branch of the famous Borja/Borgia family.

Borja also refers to an espresso drink similar to a café mocha, but with the addition of orange extract. (Valencia province grows famous oranges.)

There exist rumors that the Borgia Family had family ties with the Mastai-Ferretti but they were never proven.

Contents 1 In popular culture 1.1 Film and TV 1.2 Novels 2 See also

Neil Jordan's proposed film Borgia and the Spanish-Italian 2006 film Los Borgia depict the life of the family. The family were also the subject of the critically-derided BBC series The Borgias.

Alan Moore's comic book Promethea makes mention of a restaurant named Borgia's, in which five courses are served, followed by an antidote.

The Godfather Part III refers to The Borgias when Michael Corleone is in the Vatican attempting to receive a ratification from the Pope on a business deal own by the Catholic church.

The Third Man (1949) offers a famous quote, penned by Orson Welles for his character Harry Lime, in which he says: "Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long, Holly."

• The Family by Mario Puzo
• Mirror, Mirror by Gregory Maguire
• De scharlaken stad (The scarlet city) by Hella Haasse
• Borgia by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Milo Manara
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, père
• In Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, Ashley Wilkes states to Charles Hamilton and Scarlett O'Hara that Rhett Butler looks like one of the Borgias.

• The Black Legend, a corpus of books and rumors spreading a bad image of Spain.