Sex, intrigue and power struggles in the Vatican

Date Published: {J}

Some of the tour guides in Rome give a very saucy account of what life was really like down through the ages for Catholic popes and if you get one of those to show you around the Vatican, it’s a whole new experience.

Well, the next best thing is to watch The Borgias, the new blockbuster series on Sky Atlantic starring Jeremy Irons, and written and directed by Neil Jordan.

Based on the real Spanish family of the 1500s who were said to be the most corrupt clan to have darkened the doors of St Peters, it is certainly rich on style.

It looks as if no expense was spared, though that can easily be cheated now with CGI (computerised enhancement).

It is certainly beautifully filmed, with many lingering shots through archways and windows into the world inside the Vatican portraying a time when the Pope could decide on who would be heads of states and his word was king among the Catholic world.

The look of the series is luscious with fantastic costumes, subdued lighting and sets that convey a Rome of a few centuries ago. In fact many shots look like the medieval paintings.

Irons is brilliant, with only two of the nine episodes over, as the corrupt Rodrigo Borgia, the new pope, and a father of three it seems, all the better to practice nepotism.

And of course he makes his eldest a cardinal and so the rot sinks in as they accumulate more and more enemies. And at the rate they do, who would want power?

Like all the big dramas made for TV, it has the required amount of sex, intrigue, violence and greed for power – in other words all the ingredients required for the type of series aired by the new Sky Atlantic channel, which also aired Boardwalk Empire (the first episode of which was directed by Martin Scorsese no less!), Blue Bloods and Game of Thrones.

The Borgias is slow moving, and for viewers who love historical drama this is just the programme, though it is not for the faint hearted.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.