Rodrigo Borja as Vice-Chancellor in Rome: Intro by Hibbert

This is merely a brief outline of the third chapter from The Borgias and their Enemies by Chris Hibbert (2008). I picked the third chapter to show here, as this is the extent - a full chapter - of which he spends on the career of Cardinal Rodrigo Borja as vice-chancellor of Rome. A job Borja was granted at the age of twenty-five (1456) and which he was to fill for five papacies and thirty-six years.

Flatly told, it was reported that Rodrigo was picked by Pius II for this powerful position upon his own accession to pope because of the young spanish cardinal's campaigning skills. But Rodrigo had many sources of income, not just in the offices or favors he could gain by official duies or proferrments in and around the court in Rome and beyond. He also, at that tender age, held the reins for three bishoprics in Spain, including those of Cartagena and Valencia, primary shipping ports for connections with Italy and in the other direction, beyond the Mediterranean Sea.
Hibbert gives a helpful quote from Jacopo Gherrardi da Volterra listing some of the benefices Rodrigo could benefit from: abbeys in Spain and Italy, also,the bishopric in Porto, Spain; the plates and pearls, the books of magnificent quality, the silk, the gold and embroideries, horse trappings, bed and clothes richness, more gold, and tapestries,and all seemed to flow to him. But little is mentioned as to what a vice-chancellor actually did.
Burchard says he was in charge of the datary as well as chairman of the entire administrative structure of the Vatican. Geoffrey Parker explains that all clerical bulls and official appeals were sent and came through the Datary and the office of the Chancery. Cardinal Rodrigo Borja controlled the official information flow to and from the Vatican for four decades before becoming pope.

Borja kept a pace at home that was a wonder for the age as well. He didn't marry but had numerous mistresses and mothers who eventually would live in his great palace in Rome. He fathered at least a dozen children, as cardinal, though he was not ordained a priest until 1468. Admonished early in his office under pope Pius II, Borja clearly had worked all that disagreement out by the time Sixtus IV had granted him the bishopric of Albano and the 'lucrative abbey of Subiaco.'
In May 1472 he was sent to Spain to normalize the wedding between consanguineous cousins, Ferdinand and Isabella and thus cement the alliance between the two states of Spain, Aragon and Castile. This he did with charm and grace and within fourteen months he sailed home with his job complete. Shipwrecked and taken to Pisa to recuperate, he met Vanozza dei Catanei who became mother to four of his children - he already had three - and who would continue to rear them while marrying other men. In 1483 Vanozza was moved out and his children were put into the care of his cousin Adriana who had married into one of the most powerful families in Rome, the Orsini. Again Rodrigo caught sight of another young woman, had her married - in 1489 to Adriani's stepson Orsino - and brought her nearer to his activities in Rome. Giulia Farnese became mother to a girl, Laura Borja.
It is widely thought that most noble houses of Europe are descended from cardinal Rodrigo Borja.
With the accession of pope Innocent VIII, Rome began to slip back into chaos again, according to Hibbert. Security could be more easily bought off and palaces became seen as potential hordes for looting. Murders and backstabbers popped up, as did snipers at rooftops. Throat slitting bandits waylaid carriages in transport. But cardinal Borja still preferred to walk the streets without a carriage or much of a guard. Into his sixties, he was well-liked.

So here a quick outline briefly summarized above. Hibbert spends twenty chapters and some 200 pages on Rodrigo's papacy of barely eleven years, and barely sixteen pages on the thrirty-six as vice-chancellor. I want more, it doesn't seem to do justice to the man and his gifts.

II. Career of cardinal Rodrigo Borja before papacy: ch 3
   A. Accession to vice chancellory, it's benefits, pp 19-21
   B. Quoted admonishment by Pius II to Borja for profligacy, pp 22-3
   C. Easter 1462 reception of St Andrew skull and festivities, pp 23-4
   D. Borja's palace in Rome, p 24-5
   E. Death of Pius, Election of popes Paul II, Sixtus IV, pp 25-6
   F. Character and Activities of Sixtus IV, pp 26-9
   G. Borja leaves Rome for Spain, p 29
   H. Borja has some illegitimate children, Sixtus sanctions them, pp 29-31
   I. Borja has other family matters, pp 31-2
   J. Death of Sixtus IV, election of Innocent VIII, pp 32-3
   K. Borja's wealth, reputation, Rome's decline again, pp 33-5
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notes culled from, and pagination from, Christopher Hibbert and Mary Hollingsworth: The Borgias and Their Enemies , Harcourt Inc., Houghton Miflin, Harcourt, Orlando, FL 2008