| ◄ PREVIOUS: 3.07 | ■ BACK TO SEASON THREE EPISODE GUIDE | NEXT: 3.09 ► |
 |
| ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
| |||
| |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||
| |
| |||
| The time of the 1500 Jubilee Year celebrations has come in Rome and thanks to Rodrigo's ingenious money-making schemes and his lavish displays of Christian glory and wealth and the long considered lost Spear of Longinus, the Vatican treasury is quickly filling with pilgrim money. Knowing that the proceeds of the Jubilee will be used to wage war against her and furious at the death of her son, Caterina Sforza conspires with the defrocked cardinal DeLuca to attract pilgrims to her own territory in Marino by falsifying another holy relic, the Shroud of Constantinople. The former cardinal suggests that tears of blood would make the spectacle all the more profitable and soon the Pope discovers his ludicrous festival being undermined by the Countess of Forli. Cesare and Micheletto are dispatched to deal with the problem but not before Micheletto's lover Pascal can inform Rufio of their imminent arrival. Caterina stages a trap but Cesare and Micheletto escape it alive if heavily wounded. Back in Rome, Pope Alexander VI is investing the newly-crowned King Frederigo of Naples, unaware that he's in league with Caterina Sforza. The King of Naples asks the Pope to name Lucrezia his ambassador to Naples and Alexander VI agrees but soon Lucrezia returns to Naples and discovers that she is as much a prisoner to the new king's will as she was to the previous one's. Constantly watched and followed, Lucrezia petitions the King to leave her alone and when he informs her that she should have chosen his brother instead of him to place on the throne, the Pope's daughter is in need of medical attention and demands that she be examined by the old herbalist she met in the forest. The woman informs her that she was a pawn of Frederigo as well but recognizing a great schemer and a natural witchcraft talent in Lucrezia, the old lady gives the girl a sleeping potion to be used to escape the Neapolitan palace. Due to a tiny error, Pascal's cover is blown and Micheletto starts intercepting his coded letters to King Frederigo and Rufio, which he instantly copies and tries to decrypt. With Cesare's guidance, the two men soon discover Pascal's a spy and driven by rage at the thought of Lucrezia in danger, Cesare orders him dead. The heart-broken Micheletto, who had developed feelings for the boy, confronts him and makes him accept his fate, even if Micheletto's himself is in terrible, unbearable pain. The Pope's Jewish contact devises of a better way to take advantage of the proceeds from the Jubilee celebrations and uses his clandestine resources in Kefallonia to burn down and obliterate the entire Turkish navy by means of oil in the name of the Pope. With his arms and his money no longer needed for his holy crusade, Rodrigo is free to focus on re-equiping his armies to battle Caterina Sforza and he thanks the Jews for their help by drafting a papal bull exempting them from taxation for the privilege of residing and trading within Rome's walls. |
| |||
|
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| |||
|
| |||
|
| |||
|
| ||||
| How did this episode differ from actual events? Compare the facts with the fiction below! | ||||
| ON THE BORGIAS... | IN HISTORY... | |||
|
| |||
| |
| ◄ PREVIOUS: 3.07 | ■ BACK TO SEASON THREE EPISODE GUIDE | NEXT: 3.09 ► |