Vatican scandals under the Borgias include myth of the "chestnut supper" at which it is rumored "50 naked courtesans and valets groveled on the floor -- gamboling for chestnuts and copulating at the feet of the Holy Father.
Cesare Borgia creates a power base from his command of the Vatican armies during his father's Papacy. Machiavelli sees in the Borgias' reputation for sexual appetite an expression of their political vitality.
Caesare Borgia is effective both in the field and in negotiations; he "had the grace of a bullfighter and the practiced unction of a churchman" and "for all his muscular bearing, he might have seemed dapper."
The mercenary Vitellozzo Vitelli plots against his captain Caesare: "moody with syphylis, he nursed a sullen venereal anger and roused other malcontents."
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