One Borgia film makes it to the finish line

Martha wrote earlier today about how Neil Jordan has been trying to get the film Borgia made forever, to no avail, and how the project has once again been shelved. But we have good news for all you film buffs who have been anxiously awaiting a film about the scandalous Renaissance dynasty - Los Borgia, helmed by Spanish director Antonio Hernández (who is also in production on Cervantes), has been acquired by Spanish company Filmax for worldwide rights outside Italy and Spain.

Hernández's version of the film stars Lluís Homar as  notorious pope Alexander VI, Sergio Peris-Mencheta as his ruthless son César, and María Valverde as César's sister Lucrezia, who, depending which account you believe, was either a wicked femme fatale as ruthless and cunning as her brother and father, or a pawn of both in their unquenchable lust for power.

The story of the Borgia's is a compelling one, full of murder by poison, political treachery, affairs, rumors of incest, religious power struggles, and, here and there, some patronage of the arts. César (the model for Machiavelli's The Prince)  was the illegitimate son of Rodrigo Borgia (later Pope Alexander VI) by Vannozza dei Canti, one of his many mistresses. César was initally groomed for a church career, but the assassination of his brother Juan (some accounts claim César was responsibile for his brother's murder) forced Alexander VI to put César in a military position instead.  

César's sister Lucrezia was married off several times, presumably to advance her father and brother politcally. Betrothed twice before the age of 11, she was first married off at the age of 13, in a marriage that was later annulled after her husband fled the country when Lucrezia warned him her father planned to have him assassinated. Her second husband, the Duke of Bisceglie, was supposedly murdered off by brother Cesare when his political power was no longer enticing. Her last marriage was to Alphonso d'Este, the Prince of Ferrara.

The IMDB listing also includes Diego Martin in the role of Peretto, a messenger with whom Lucrezia supposedly had an illgetimate child later claimed to be her half-brother - although there were persistent rumors that Peretto only claimed to be the child's father to protect Lucrezia, because the father was really her brother, César. It will be interesting to see which angle the film takes on this part of the history and myth surrounding the Borgia family.