Alfonso de Borja Elected Callixtus III

1455

A Valencian cardinal, elderly and uncontroversial, became the first Borgia pope and installed his Italian-born Spanish nephews at the papal court. One of them, Rodrigo, would become Alexander VI decades later. The pope's family strategy of patient nepotism was just beginning to shape the late fifteenth century. His promotion of Spanish nephews established the Borgia nepotism that reached its apex under Alexander VI decades later.