The Notorious Banquet of Chestnuts

On October 31, 1501, the notorious Italian family. the Borgias, threw a party in the Papal Palace. The salacious details of that event, known as the "Banquet of Chestnuts" has captivated gossips for centuries.

CW: sex

Support Noble Blood:

— Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon

— Noble Blood merch

— Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. One brief
note before we begin. This episode contains some very sexual scenes.
October thirty, first, fifteen oh one, the sun was setting

(00:25):
over Vatican City and most people were preparing to celebrate
All Saints Eve, which usually involved feasting and attending church
services in honor of beloved Catholic Saints. They didn't practice
Halloween as we know it today. Sadly, there was probably
no one dressing up as a sexy bishop or sexy sacrament,

(00:49):
but that didn't mean everything was quiet and chaste. Deep
inside Vatican City, an epic party was about to begin
in the Pope's private residence. The host was Cesaret Borgia, notorious,
son of Pope Alexander the sixth. The guest list included

(01:12):
the Pope himself, as well as Chesare's sister, the equally
notorious Lucretia Borgia. The party, known today as the Banquet
of Chestnuts, for reasons that will soon become clear, has
been gossiped about and debated for centuries. It has been

(01:33):
depicted in pop culture with an entire episode of Showtime's
series The Borges dedicated to it. The party began fairly normally,
with a fine banquet, as you might be imagining from
the name. It wasn't until after the meal that things

(01:54):
got interesting. Fifty of Rome's finest cortesans were in attendance,
and after the meal they were ordered to disrobe. Servants
moved the lit candelabras to the floor, where chestnuts were
scattered about. The courtesans were then ordered to crawl around

(02:16):
and pick them up. As one might imagine, these provocative
actions quickly led to mass copulation, a holy orgy of sorts,
blessed by the presence of the Pope, who sat with
his illicit children and watched as the whole affair unfolded.
Sounds juicy, right, a perfect little nugget of gossip that

(02:42):
lasted hundreds of years and helped define the Borges as sinful, lustful,
and salacious. The banquet of chestnuts is a fascinating bit
of history, but there is one big question we have
to ask, is it history at all? Did the banquet

(03:03):
of chestnuts actually happen? I'm Danish sports and this is
noble blood. Ah. The Borges, the family that of Renaissance
era Italians loved to hate. If you listened to our
episode about Lucretia Borgia, you'll remember that in all likelihood,

(03:25):
the Borgies were probably more tame in real life than
their reputations made them out to be, or at the
very least Lucretia was. But there's no denying that they
were hugely powerful figures, making bold moves with little regard
for the fallout. Pope Alexander the sixth born Rodrigo Borgia

(03:48):
had many illegitimate children. This was not uncommon for a
pope at the time, even though they of course were
supposed to be celibate. But Alexander the sixth did make
waves by actually claiming the four that he had with
his favorite mistress. Two of the children from that relationship

(04:08):
were Chesaret and Lucretia Borgia, who quickly gained reputations of
their own as political movers and shakers. Chesaat was known
as a ruthless climber whose actions were the model for
Machiavelli's The Prince, The how To or Tongue in Cheeks
attire about acquiring power and influence. As a beautiful woman,

(04:33):
Lucretia was a powerful political tool. Her marriages were orchestrated
by her brother and father as a way to secure
alliances and maintain control. At the time of the banquet,
arrangements were being made for her third and final marriage
to Alfonso Ladeste, Duke of Ferrara. The Borges were infamous

(04:56):
for their scheming and outright villainy, with accusationtions of every
sin under the sun being thrown at the three main Borges. However,
one had to assume that rumors aside, these guys would
know how to throw one hell of a party, and
the Banquet of Chestnuts was one for the ages. The

(05:18):
only reason we even know about this banquet today is
thanks to the work of one dedicated man, someone with
an eye for detail and a nose for a juicy story.
Think of Truman, Capodi, Gossip Girl, Lady Whistledown. Johann Bouchard
walked so that they could run. The most detailed account

(05:43):
of the Banquet of Chestnuts comes from the diary of
Johann Burchard. Burchard was an Alsatian born jack of all
white collar trades who worked both as a practicing lawyer
and an ordained priest, among other things. He left home
also leaving behind some theft and trafficking accusations, and moved

(06:06):
to Rome in the late fifteenth century. There he began
working his way up through the ranks of the Catholic Church,
ultimately serving as Master of Ceremonies for five different popes.
Alexander the sixth fell directly in the middle of the
line of popes that Burchard served. The Master of Ceremonies

(06:29):
was an essential part of the Renaissance era Catholic Church,
overseeing the accuracy and precision of the sacred rituals that
were to be performed by the pope. The Master of
Ceremonies served as a liturgical watchdog, keeping a close eye
on the style and structure of religious ceremonies, as well

(06:51):
as advising on etiquette and protocol for all sorts of
church related matters, this one specifically also to who are
great Benefit was a devoted journal keeper. Burchard's collected diaries,
also known as the Liber Notarum, serve as both an
official record of the daily machinations of the Church and

(07:15):
a fascinating look at a particularly wild and decadent period
in Italian history. Here is what Burchard had to say
about this particular night in question. Quote on the evening
of the last day of October fifteen oh one, Cesare
Borgia arranged a banquet in his chambers in the Vatican

(07:38):
with fifty honest prostitutes called courtesans, who danced after dinner
with the attendants and others who were present, at first
in their garments, then naked end quote. The sex workers
are the only group Burchard mentioned with any specificity at all,
calling the other guests, attendants and others who were present.

(08:01):
This is presumably to protect the anonymity of those who
were involved. No doubt Borgia family, friends, and associates. Whoever
the other attendees were, we can assume they were both
powerful and discreet, or at the very least they didn't
keep journals that made it into the historical record. The

(08:22):
title of honest courtesans wasn't Burchard's way of passing judgment
on the workers. I'd argue that, with multiple confessions under
his own belt, he was in no position to weigh
in on the virtue of others, but rather, honest courtesans
was actually a class distinction, a subset of sex workers

(08:44):
who specifically served the nobility. They were often quite learned,
with social graces and artistic, musical, or literary talents befitting
the upper echelons of society. These honest courtesans could also
be unbelievably expensive, but their rates were gladly paid. After all,

(09:06):
many noblemen needed the illusion of women of their own
class and rank who would indulge their desires and find
them endlessly fascinating. We'll talk more about the sex workers
in the later part of this episode, but for now,
let's press on. When we left them in the diary,
the fifty sex workers were in the process of shedding

(09:29):
their clothes and dancing with the other guests, who were
presumably still clothed. Burchard continues quote. After dinner, the candelabra
with the burning candles were taken from the tables and
placed on the floor, and chestnuts were strewn around, which
the naked courtesans picked up, creeping on hands and knees

(09:53):
between the chandeliers while the Pope, Cessaret and his sister
Lucretia looked on. Let's pause here and unpack. Fans of
HBO's succession might have already picked up on the similarities
to bore on the floor. A dysfunctional, power hungry family

(10:14):
watching underlings humiliate themselves for a quick thrill. Abuse of
power is truly timeless, but questions still abound even with
this diary entry. Who threw the chestnuts? Were they already
on the table and grabbed impulsively by Cessaray or one
of his pals because someone decided the party needed to

(10:36):
be kicked up a notch? Or was it all planned? Frustratingly,
Burchard failed to think of future nosy readers, particularly the
more logistics oriented among us. He did, however, leave us
with another last detail quote. Finally, prizes were announced for

(10:56):
those who could perform the act most often with the courtesans,
such as tunics of silk, shoes, barrels, and other things.
Plenty of details here about the prizes themselves, not as
much about the parts that were actually salacious. Who won?
Are we correct to presume that only men could compete?

(11:20):
No doubt the revelers were up to all kinds of
kinky business, but it feels safe to infer that the
prizes were reserved for the men who copulated with the
most women. Again, how much of this was planned ahead
of time? It's unclear when the event picked up the
name Banquet of Chestnuts, but it's easy to see how

(11:42):
such a legendary gathering acquired an if you know, you
know nickname. The party's effects were still on display for
days afterward. Florentine ambassador Francesco Peppy reported that Pope Alexander
was a no show for mass for four days. Afterwards,

(12:03):
rumors swirled of a nasty hangover. The ambassador chalked this
up to the pontiff having gone out quote until the
twelfth hour with the Duke, who had brought into the
palace that night singers and courtesans, and all night they
spent in pleasure, dancing and laughter. While hangovers certainly do

(12:24):
get worse with age, and the eldest Borgia was seventy
years old at this time, a four day recovery still
sounds a little excessive, but it certainly adds to the
party's reputation. While Burchard is the only eye witness account
of the party, the lascivious details fall right in line

(12:45):
with the existing public image of the Borges. Other documents
support a party having taken place at the Apostolic Palace
that night, but none of them have the Master of
ceremonies eye for details or specifics. During this same time,
the pope came across a pamphlet that laid bare every

(13:07):
scrap of public opinion about his infamous family. Written in
the form of an anonymous letter to political exile Silvio Savelli,
it functions as a sort of burn book, recording in
sordid detail an exhaustive account of the borges alleged crimes.
According to the pamphlet, the Pope was quote betrayer of

(13:31):
the human race, Chessaret was a debaucherous murderer, and Lucretia
was an incestuous monster who slept with pretty much every
member of her family. Clearly, the pamphlet was a combination
of half truth's hyperbole and outright slander, but it was
impactful enough that Burchard included passages in his diary. In

(13:55):
her history book, Cesaret and Lucretia Borgia, brother and sister
of history's most vilified family. Samantha Morris paints the male
borges reactions to the pamphlet as consistent with their reputations.
Quote Alexander, as was typical of him, found the whole
thing rather amusing. Cessaret, on the other hand, was less

(14:18):
than impressed. Since he was a young man, he had
not dealt well with slights on his pride, and during
the December following the Savelli letter, he took action against
a masked individual who was wandering the borgo uttering insults
against the Pope's family end quote. C Cessarey had the

(14:40):
man's right hand cut off, as well as his tongue,
and displayed them in a local church as a cautionary tale.
A month later, Chesarey ordered the execution of a man
for simply translating a libel against his family. The Pope's
only response to his son's action was quote, the Duke

(15:02):
is good natured, but he has not yet learned to
bear insult end quote. Gossiping about the Borges was a
dangerous game, especially with Chessaray around, but it was a
game that few Italians seemed able to resist. It's easy
to see why something like the banquet of chestnuts would

(15:25):
have easily taken hold with the public. It's the perfect
kind of scandal, titillating, extravagant, strange, and best of all,
it's about people in power. Much of the rumor mill
surrounding the Borges concerned violent crimes, if not outright murder,
So we can imagine that it must have been a

(15:46):
little bit of a relief to be able to gossip
about something as fun as a glorified orgy. But there
has been much speculation about how true Richard's version of
events actually was. Centuries after Alexander the sixth death, Catholic
monseigneur and historian Peter Derux wrote a five volume defense

(16:09):
of the controversial pope, with the thesis that the Borgia
patriarch had essentially been given the villain edit by history.
It was Deroux's stance that the banquet couldn't possibly have
happened as described, because Alexander would never have participated in
behavior that was so quote truly bestial. Dereux has since

(16:34):
been condemned by other historians for his overly generous, if
not delusional, view of the former pope. As dubious as
Deru's argument may be, it does bear stating that it
was widely known that Johann Burchard was not a fan
of the Borges, But would that lead him to fully

(16:56):
fabricate a story, or did he record it exact exactly
as it occurred and let the family be judged by
their own actions. In his book The Borges, Power and
Depravity in Renaissance Italy, Paul Strathorne remarks on the quote
lurid detail of Burchard's account, as well as a report

(17:17):
by a contemporary from Perugia named Francesco Materazzo. According to
Moderazzo's account of the party, Pope Alexander had the lights extinguished,
then quote the men and women left their clothes and
had diversion. Still a salacious orgy, but not nearly as

(17:38):
memorable as the banquet of chestnuts. Strathearne sums up what
many Italians probably thought at the time. Quote. Despite the
possibility of exaggeration in these reports, some of the details
have a compelling particularity. If nothing else, the Borges certainly

(17:59):
seemed to be living up to their reputation. In other words,
why be worried about the truth when the details are
so fun and they could be true? And few people
have had more fun with the story than William Manchester.
In his controversial book A World Lit Only by Fire,

(18:21):
The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance, Manchester revels in the
lurid details, often foregoing historical accuracy for the sake of
a good story, he upgrades the courtesans from Burchard's account
to quote the city's fifty most beautiful whores end quote,
and adds some graphic details of his own. According to Manchester, quote,

(18:47):
servants kept score of each man's orgasms for the Pope
greatly admired virility, and measured a man's machismo by his
ejaculative capacity. After everyone was a exhausted, his holiness distributed
prizes end quote. It's plausible, but we don't get those

(19:07):
details in the original account. Hard to imagine what might
have been going through the minds of the Borgia household
servants as they stood by with pen and paper, jotting
down hash marks each time a sexual act was finished
to completion. But in this version of the Borgia story,
one would have to imagine that at this point in

(19:29):
the servant's tenure, they probably would have just considered it
part of the job. Manchester had a particular fascination with
the female Borgia, even being generous enough to question the
veracity of Lucretia's monstrous reputation. In his book, Manchester opined
that quote the Lucretia Borgia, who has come down to

(19:53):
us is an ad mixture of myth, fable and incontestable fact.
It is quite possible that she was to some degree
a victim of misogynistic slander. The medieval Church saw woman
as Ava Redeviva, the temptress responsible for Adam's fall, and

(20:14):
the illegitimate daughter of a pope. May have been an
irresistible target for gossip, particularly when she was physically attractive.
End quote. If even a fairly salacious fabuloust can spot misogyny,
then I think it's safe to say it was well
and present. On that note, let's look at Amy License's

(20:38):
account from her book The sixteenth Century in one Hundred Women.
In the chapter titled Unnamed Prostitute Banquet of Chestnuts, License
imagines how the night would have gone from the perspective
of two sex workers who were brought to the palace
for the evening. This version adhears fairly closely to Burchard's

(21:01):
account as far as details go, with the added context
of the role that sex work played in the culture,
License writes, quote, prostitution was tolerated as a necessary evil
in Renaissance Italy, following the various teachings of the Catholic
Church Saint Augustine wrote that it prevented men from corrupting

(21:23):
good women, and Thomas Aquinas believed that without it, the
city would overflow with sin like a sewer, and men
would turn to the greater sin of sodomy. Prostitution was
decriminalized but not respected. From that, one can imagine that
the women were at the party not as guests, but

(21:45):
as some combination of entertainment and party favors. Without their work,
it would have been just another drunken dinner party. License
concludes her chapter on the Banquet of Chestnuts by zooming
out and looking at the lives of sixteenth century sex
workers in general. Quote, very few were able to serve

(22:07):
members of the aristocracy with the commensurate rewards that could bring.
The majority had little control over their market or the
customers who approached them, exposing themselves not just to disease,
but potentially to degradation and violence at the hands of
the wrong man. The oldest profession in the world had

(22:30):
its risks, and its surroundings were rarely as glamorous as
the Vatican Palace. Sex might have sold as it always has,
but it paid very little, and the costs to prostitutes
were often high end quote for a family like the Borges,
the banquet of chestnuts, whether true or embellished, was a

(22:54):
drop in the bucket, one more shiny bit of lore
to add to an already opressive collection for the courtesan's
tasks with providing the evening's entertainment. We can only imagine
the long term effects. What would happen if any of
them became pregnant, or injured or contracted an STI Generally,

(23:17):
honest courtesans received better treatment than their lower class counterparts.
Some even enjoyed the same perks afforded to dedicated mistresses.
But there was certainly no code of conduct that their
patrons were forced to adhere to, so we can safely
assume that there was uncertainty and precariousness even at the

(23:39):
highest levels of the profession. It's hard to imagine any
member of the Borgia household giving even a glancing thought
to the long term welfare of the sex workers they
brought in once the party was over. The details of
the banquet of chestnuts might have been exaggerated, or maybe
it did happen and exactly as the Master of ceremony

(24:02):
wrote down. Either way, I think it's worth looking past
the salaciousness of the gossip and remembering that if it
did happen, there were fifty real life women who had
no choice but to become accessories to the Borges legend.

(24:25):
That's the story of the Banquet of chestnuts. But keep
listening after a brief sponsor break to hear another rumor
of impropriety at the papal palace. Christopher Hibbert gives us

(24:47):
an additional anecdote that serves as the perfect epilogue to
our story. In his book The Borges and their Enemies,
Hibbert details an event that happened just a few days
after the banquet, when a different kind of entertainment was
brought into the palace. Thanks to our faithful diar s
Johann Burchard. There is an account in which a farmer

(25:11):
delivering wood to the market was redirected by palace guards.
The guards unsaddled the farmer's mares and led them to
the courtyard inside the palace gates. According to Hibbert quote,
four stallions were then freed from their reins and harnesses
and let out of the palace stables. They immediately ran

(25:34):
to the mares, over whom they proceeded to fight furiously
and noisily amongst themselves, biting and kicking in their efforts
to mount them, and seriously wounding them with their hoofs.
The Pope and Lucretia, laughing with evident satisfaction, watched all
that was happening from a window above the palace gate.

(25:56):
End quote. Again, we must take Burchard's counts with a
grain of salt, but it's hard not to notice this
story contains certain echoes of the banquet of chestnuts. Father
and daughter taking in the spectacle, delighting in sexual exploits,
this time with the addition of physical violence. Even if

(26:17):
the family members never actually engaged in sexual acts with
each other, their apparent comfort with being together in the
presence of them is enough to raise eyebrows a little bit.
At best, it's strange. At worst, the Borges are never
beating those incest allegations. Noble Blood is a production of

(26:48):
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood
is hosted by me Danish Forts, with additional writing and
researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Julia Milani,
and Armand Cassam. The show is edited and produced by
Noehmy Griffin and rima Il Kaali, with supervising producer Josh

(27:13):
Thain and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.
Four more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.