BookishWordish’s Reviews > Inventing the Renaissance > Status Update

Ippolito d'Este (1479-1520), an abbot aged three, archbishop at eight, Cardinal at fourteen, and partly raised in Hungary by his aunt Queen Beatrice. In 1505, aged twenty-six, he had his half-brother Giulio's eyes gouged out in a quarrel over their mutual love for Angela Borgia (c. 1486- c. 1522) which sparked a multi-decade feud.

....I mean it would, wouldn't it.

Florence, determined to preserve its republic, developed a system of government so bizarre you can't use it in fiction because it isn't plausible.

"The War of the League of Cambrai is so incomprehensible its Wikipedia page had to develop a new table format to index the betrayals. Everyone switches sides, and what begins with the pope calling on everyone to attack Venice ends with Venice defending the pope from everyone else."