FEAST OF THE POPE'S GREAT GRANDSON...

 

...yes, you read that right. October 10 is the Feast of St Francis Borgia, the great grandson of Pope Alexander VI. He was born in 1510, 18 years after his native country, Spain, had discovered America. During his upbringing, Spain became the wealthiest known nation in the world and I would argue the most influential.  

His father, Juan Borgia was the second son of Pope Alexander VI. From his mother's side, he got his royal blood, he was the great-grandchild of King Ferdinand of Aragon. Pope Alexander was a scoundrel, while King Ferdinand has been regarded as a saint. 

Francis was a duke, and the right hand man of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at his opulent palace in Granada, Spain. Francis took a noblewoman, Leonor as his wife and they had 8 children, but when he was only 36, Leonor died. 

Francis's boss, Emperor Charles was married to Empress Isabella, a radiant beauty not unlike Nicole Kidman. She had strawberry blond locks, often plaited and aquamarine eyes. But Isabella died after giving birth to a stillborn child and developing a rapacious fever. Francis was given a most delicate task; he convoyed Isabella's decomposing dead body to her burial place. This was a heavy-duty assignment because there were many who wanted to pinch the empress's mortal coil, or take a body part as a relic or something that could be sold. 

The sight of Isabella's disfigured face and decaying remains made Francis resolve to leave the world and be the servant to Christ, the King of kings. That such a ravishingly beautiful woman could suffer the ravages of the grave made Francis want to leave the employ (and the prestige) of the royal household, and he declared, "Never again will I serve a mortal master!"

Francis became a Jesuit, wanting to live an obscure life, one that allowed him to refuse all earthly honors, and his self-abnegation impressed Emperor Charles V so much that he thought about renouncing the throne. Francis gave himself to hard labor and punishing self-mortification. He lived his life to atone for the sins of his great-grandfather-the-Pope. Francis is the patron saint of difficult deaths, and can be invoked for people who are about to meet their maker and yet are struggling with coming to terms with their own demise.

As an aside, Francis's great-grandfather, Pope Alexander VI isn't as distant as he may seem. His papacy was so riven with corruption that he was the catalyst for the radical reformer Girolamo Savonarola's rise to fame as a reformer who spoke out in shrill tones against this Borgia Pope. 

Savonarola was nay-sayer in chief. He opposed the philandering Pope Alexander VI and was so vocal an opponent of the Pope who fathered 8 children that he was hung and his body burnt to ash. Pope Alexander did not much like criticism, especially of the achingly exact kind. 

Girolamo Savonarola was one of the most die-hard Dominicans to have ever lived and he was the key influence in St. Pier Giorgio Frassati's decision to become a Third Order Dominican. 

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The first classic painting was executed by Alonso Cano and the second by Peter Paul Rubens. They are in the public domain.