Francesc de Borja. El duc sant

Published to coincide with the 500th anniversary of his birth, the biographer Josep Piera presents the story of Francesc de Borja (1510-1572). Based on information from contemporary chronicles, from the historians of the age – and our age - as well as from his biography written in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Francesc de Borja was a descendent of Aragonese royalty and of two popes. He was the 4th Duke of Gandia, Viceroy of Cataluña, counsellor to the Emperor Charles I of Spain and to the German royalty and was also a leading jesuit figure. This is the most complete biography of Francesc de Borja yet written, telling the story of a noble civilian, a courtly man and a jesuit who confronted many of the preconceptions of his age. The author challenges the mythology that surrounds the lives of the Borgias, which often tends to sensationalise or repeat the rhetoric of contemporary hagiography. The author has distanced himself from the legends of the 19th century, the banalities of religious accounts and anti-jesuit polemics to get to the truth behind this extraordinary historical figure.