"A los pies de Venus (los Borgia)" by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez is a novel written in the early 20th century. It pairs a sensual, high-society romance on the French Riviera—between the young Spaniard Claudio Borja and the glamorous Argentine widow Rosaura Pineda—with a learned reappraisal of the Borgia legacy driven by Claudio’s priestly uncle. The likely arc sets modern desire, jealousy, and reputation against a journey toward Rome and a historical reckoning with the much-maligned Borgias.The opening of the novel follows Claudio as he realizes a blissful year has slipped by since his chance union with Rosaura after a storm near Peñíscola; they travel through Europe and settle on the Côte d’Azur, living a gilded “Venusberg” of love that frays as society, gambling, and dance halls return. Claudio, a poor dancer and Spanish poet unread by the multilingual set, chafes at being seen as Rosaura’s gigolo, watches her ex-lover Urdaneta hover without real threat, frets over money, and torments her with jealous midnight interrogations. A letter from his uncle, canon Baltasar Figueras, brings a visit: the kindly scholar tolerates the couple, recoils from Monte-Carlo, and in Rosaura’s garden launches an impassioned brief to rehabilitate the Borgias, arguing their vices were of their age and exposing how legend and bias blackened Alejandro VI and Lucrecia. As the uncle presses Claudio to help this cause, he sketches the roots in Xàtiva and Canals, the rise of Alfonso de Borja (Calixto III),…
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