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In Game:

Rome is the capital city of Italy.

On March 15th, 44 BCE, Gaius Julius Caesar was stabbed and killed in the Theatre of Pompey by forty senators, calling themselves the "Liberatores", who secretly were Hidden Ones. These Liberatores were led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, and helped by the Egyptian Hidden One Aya.

In 1476, cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, Grand Master of the Italian Templars and a powerful figure in Vatican politics, briefly left the city to discuss his Order's plans, before returning to affirm Papal approval. Assent was given by Pope Sixtus IV, and the Templars were provided with military support for their endeavors.

In 1492, Rodrigo became Pope Alexander VI, and head of the Papal States and Catholic Church. Ruling from Rome, he was left alone by the Assassins for the most part until 1499, when Ezio Auditore da Firenze learned that the Vatican Vault was located in Rome, beneath the Sistine Chapel.

In 1500, following the Siege of Monteriggioni that was led by Cesare Borgia, Ezio returned to Rome to exact his revenge. At the time, the city had fallen far behind those of Florence and Venice, and had grown stagnant in terms of development, due to the influence of the Borgia.

The Borgia maintained oppression over the city with towers located throughout Rome, which prevented shops from opening. In order to free Rome of the Borgia influence, Ezio killed the overlords of the towers and burned the structures themselves to the ground, taking them over for the Assassin Order afterwards.

In Real Life:

Rome's history spans twenty eight centuries. While Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The city's early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans, and Sabines. Eventually, the city successively became the capital of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and is regarded as the birthplace of Western civilization and by some as the first ever metropolis.

During the Renaissance, the wealthy families who ruled the cities competed with each others to assure the best artists to magnify their courts. One of the most famous and generous family were the Medici, the ruler of Florence, who gathered around their court the best sculptures, poets, architects, and genial minds of their period. In Rome it was the pope who assumed the role of artistic Maecenas.

The restoration of the city and the first steps towards the re-establishing of the papacy supremacy over Rome and central Italy began in 1420, with Pope Martin V, a member of the important and rich Roman family. Soon the supremacy of the pope was recognized by the Commune self, and the cuty acknowledged its dependency on the papacy. Once re-established the pontifical monarchy, in 1447, Rome underwent a period of restoration and enrichment.

On of the richest patrons of his time was Sixtus IV, a member of Della Rovere family. In 1471 he founded the oldest public art collection in the world when he donated to the city the sculptures which now form the nucleus of the Capitoline museums, and he considerably increased the holdings of the Vatican library and made it public. He rebuilt the 'Sistine' Chapel (named after him) and constructed the Ponte Sisto across the Tiber. 

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He also reorganized the streets of the city. In the meanwhile, his nephew Cardinal Raffaello Riario commissioned the erection of the splendid Renaissance Palazzo della Cancelleria, the grandest of all the wealthy cardinals' residences of that time. But Rome became the real centre of the High Renaissance at the beginning of the 16th century, under the papacy of Julius II, who spent untold riches on ambitious artistic projects designed to glorify the papacy as successor to the ancient Roman Empire.

One of the more influential popes of this time period was Pope Alexander VI, from the Spanish family Borgia. He first turned his attention to the defense of the Eternal City. He changed the Mausoleum of Adrian into a fortress, likewise Torre di Nona, to secure the city from naval attacks. His Via Alessandrina, now called Borgo Nuovo, remains to the present day the grand approach to St. Peter's. Though a scandalous pope, he was a patron of the arts and sciences, and in his days a new architectural era was initiated in Rome with the coming of Bramante. Raphael, Michelangelo and Pinturicchio. He commissioned Pinturicchio to lavishly paint a suite of rooms in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, which are today known as the Borgia Apartments. In addition to the structures erected by himself, his memory is associated with the many others built by monarchs and cardinals at his instigation.

In Game:

Nicolaus Copernicus, also known as Mikołaj Kopernik and Niccolò Copernico, was a Polish Renaissance astronomer, mathematician, and priest.

In 1500, Copernicus visited the Vatican, where he was introduced to the Templar Order. Upon joining them, he was later told that they wanted him to keep his discoveries secret.

A day after, however, he enlightened the public on science and mathematics at the Il Campidoglio, encouraging them to question past teachings, as he could not keep his findings to himself. He went on to urge the crowd to visit him or his fellow scholars if they wished to know more.

As soon as the Borgia – the leading house in the Templar Order – heard of this, they sent their guards to kill Copernicus and the other scholars. The Assassin Ezio Auditore da Firenze watched the scene unfold and, upon realizing their common enemy, came to Copernicus' aid.

Copernicus admitted his affiliations to the Templars to Ezio, though the latter was willing to help Copernicus reach a safe location. Upon arriving in a secluded building in the Antico District, Copernicus asked Ezio to deliver some documents to his fellow scholars, which would inform them of the danger they were in. Though doubtful if he could trust him, Ezio agreed, and aided most of the scholars in going into hiding.

The Assassin returned some time later, and by then, Copernicus had concluded that the Master of the Sacred Palace was most likely behind the plot to kill him. Ezio sought out the Master and heard from him that there were six executioners walking around Rome, searching for the scholars. Ezio rushed to take these executioners down, and returned to Copernicus with the confirmation that his suspicion had been correct.

Copernicus, however, was persistent in going out into the open to study a lunar eclipse. The Master of the Sacred Palace seized this opportunity, and sent a Papal Guard to kill him. Ezio followed and killed the Master of the Sacred Palace before returning to Copernicus, with whom he took down the assailants. The pair then went their separate ways, with Copernicus staying behind to study the eclipse.

Following their encounter, Copernicus became an ally of the Assassin Order, and was assisted in further astronomical studies with Novara via the Order's protection, with one instance including the Assassins Francesco Vecellio and Cipriano Enu.

In Real Life:

Certain facts about  Nicolaus Copernicus’s early life are well established, although a biography written by his ardent disciple Georg Joachim Rheticus is unfortunately lost. According to a later horoscope, Nicolaus Copernicus was born on February 19, 1473, in Toruń, a city in north-central Poland on the Vistula River south of the major Baltic seaport of Gdańsk. His father, Nicolaus, was a well-to-do merchant, and his mother, Barbara Watzenrode, also came from a leading merchant family. Nicolaus was the youngest of four children. After his father’s death, sometime between 1483 and 1485, his mother’s brother Lucas Watzenrode took his nephew under his protection. Watzenrode, soon to be bishop of the chapter of Varmia (Warmia), saw to young Nicolaus’s education and his future career as a church canon.

Between 1491 and about 1494 Copernicus studied liberal arts—including astronomy and astrology—at the University of Cracow (Kraków). Like many students of his time, however, he left before completing his degree, resuming his studies in Italy at the University of Bologna, where his uncle had obtained a doctorate in canon law in 1473. The Bologna period was short but significant. For a time Copernicus lived in the same house as the principal astronomer at the university, Domenico Maria de Novara.

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Novara also probably introduced Copernicus to two important books that framed his future problematic as a student of the heavens: Epitoma in Almagestum Ptolemaei (“Epitome of Ptolemy’s Almagest”) by Johann Müller (also known as Regiomontanus, 1436–76) and Disputationes adversus astrologianm divinatricenm (“Disputations against Divinatory Astrology”) by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–94). The first provided a summary of the foundations of Ptolemy’s astronomy, with Regiomontanus’s corrections and critical expansions of certain important planetary models that might have been suggestive to Copernicus of directions leading to the heliocentric hypothesis. Pico’s Disputationes offered a devastating skeptical attack on the foundations of astrology that reverberated into the 17th century. Among Pico’s criticisms was the charge that, because astronomers disagreed about the order of the planets, astrologers could not be certain about the strengths of the powers issuing from the planets.

Only 27 recorded observations are known for Copernicus’s entire life (he undoubtedly made more than that), most of them concerning eclipses, alignments, and conjunctions of planets and stars. The first such known observation occurred on March 9th, 1497, at Bologna. By the time he published this observation in 1543, he had made it the basis of a theoretical claim: that it confirmed exactly the size of the apparent lunar diameter. But in 1497 he was probably using it to assist in checking the new- and full-moon tables derived from the commonly used Alfonsine Tables and employed in Novara’s forecast for the year 1498.

In 1500 Copernicus spoke before an interested audience in Rome on mathematical subjects, but the exact content of his lectures is unknown. In 1501 he stayed briefly in Frauenburg but soon returned to Italy to continue his studies, this time at the University of Padua, where he pursued medical studies between 1501 and 1503. At this time medicine was closely allied with astrology, as the stars were thought to influence the body’s dispositions. Thus, Copernicus’s astrological experience at Bologna was better training for medicine than one might imagine today. Copernicus later painted a self-portrait; it is likely that he acquired the necessary artistic skills while in Padua, since there was a flourishing community of painters there and in nearby Venice.

In May 1503 Copernicus finally received a doctorate—like his uncle, in canon law—but from an Italian university where he had not studied: the University of Ferrara. When he returned to Poland, Bishop Watzenrode arranged a sinecure for him: an in absentia teaching post at Wrocław. Copernicus’s actual duties at the bishopric palace, however, were largely administrative and medical. As a church canon, he collected rents from church-owned lands; secured military defenses; oversaw chapter finances; managed the bakery, brewery, and mills; and cared for the medical needs of the other canons and his uncle. Copernicus’s astronomical work took place in his spare time, apart from these other obligations.

He proposed that the planets have the Sun as the fixed point to which their motions are to be referred; that Earth is a planet which, besides orbiting the Sun annually, also turns once daily on its own axis; and that very slow, long-term changes in the direction of this axis account for the procession of the equinoxes. This representation of the heavens is usually called the heliocentric, or “Sun-centred,” system—derived from the Greek helios, meaning “Sun.” Copernicus’s theory had important consequences for later thinkers of the scientific revolution, including such major figures as Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, and Newton. Copernicus probably hit upon his main idea sometime between 1508 and 1514, and during those years he wrote a manuscript usually called the Commentariolus (“Little Commentary”). However, the book that contains the final version of his theory, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri vi (“Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs”), did not appear in print until 1543, the year of his death.

In Game:

Juan Borgia, also known as Giovanni Borgia, was the second Duke of Gandia, and the first son of Rodrigo Borgia – the Grand Master of the Italian Templars – and his long-term mistress Vannozza dei Cattanei.

Juan was also the older brother of Cesare, Lucrezia and Jofré Borgia, and the grandfather of Francis Borgia.

Since Juan was his favorite son, Rodrigo made him the Captain-General of the Papal armies as soon after he became Pope in 1492. At around this time, Juan's younger brother, Cesare, became a Cardinal.

In 1496, Juan fought Bartolomeo d'Alviano at the Siege of Bracciano, wherein Bartolomeo sent a donkey out of the city, with a sign around its neck reading "Let me go for I am an ambassador to the Duke of Gandia." Bartolomeo had also tied a letter for Juan to the donkey's tail, which contained further insults.

By 1497, Cesare had realized that his life as a Cardinal would lead nowhere, and that if he wanted to gain power, he would need to get rid of his brother. Upon enticing Juan into a night spent in the company of courtesans, Cesare introduced him to Fiora Cavazza, a close ally of his. That night on June 14, Cesare watched as Fiora engaged Juan in a moment of passion, before she slit his throat with a dagger. Juan's body was later thrown into the Tiber.

Subsequent to the discovery of Juan's death, Cesare became Captain-General in his stead, and was never identified as his brother's killer.

In Real Life:

Giovanni Borgia was probably born in Rome to then-cardinal Rodrigo Borgia (later to become Pope Alexander VI), and his mistress, Vannozza dei Cattanei, who was married to Domenico da Rignano. Giovanni married Maria Enriquez de Luna, the Spanish betrothed of his deceased older half-brother, Pedro Luis, in September 1493. He was made 2nd Duke of Gandia, Duke of Sessa, Grand Constable of Naples, Governor of St. Peter's, and Gonfalonier and Captain General of the Church.

Giovanni and Maria had three children: twins Juan de Borja y Enríquez (known as Juan Borgia, father of Francis Borgia, 4th Duke of Gandía), who became the 3rd Duke of Gandía, and Francisca de Jesús Borja, who became a nun at a convent in Valladolid. The younger Juan was the father of Saint Francis Borgia. Their third child, Isabel de Borja y Enríquez, was born after her father was killed; she grew up to be abbess of Santa Clara in Gandia.

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Borgia was murdered the night of June 14th, 1497 near what later became the Piazza della Giudecca in the ghetto of Rome. Giovanni was last seen alive when he was leaving from a feast that his mother had in his honor at her villa with his other siblings Cesare, Lucrezia, and Gioffre; Gioffre's wife Sancha of Aragon, their cousin Juan Borgia Lanzol, and Vannozza's husband, Carlo Canale, were all in attendance.

The next morning his horse came back without its rider and with one of the stirrups cut. He was reported missing. A search party found his body in the Tiber with his throat slit, and about nine stab wounds on his torso. His grief-stricken father launched an intensive investigation into the murder, only to end it abruptly a week later. While the Orsini family had ample motive to kill Giovanni, it was later rumored that his younger brother Gioffre Borgia murdered him due to Giovanni's relationship with Gioffre's wife, Sancha. His richly-attired body was recovered from the Tiber River with 30 golden ducats untouched in the purse at his belt. To the immense grief of the pope, this act occasioned the epigram by Sannazzaro on the pope as "fisher of men." Borgia's only attendant was also slain, so there were no known witnesses.

In Game:

Micheletto Corella, also known as Michele di Coreglia or Miguel de Corella, was a condottiero and a member of the Roman Rite of the Templar Order, as well as the personal bodyguard and assassin of Cesare Borgia.

Micheletto would go on to become the most loyal of Cesare's servants, often acting as the executioner of those who stood in his master's way. All these services led to him being named Cesare's right-hand man, though he still served the Borgia family as a whole.

Around this time, he became a condottiero, and was named the governor of Piombino for a short period of time.

In January 1500, Micheletto accompanied Cesare, Lucrezia Borgia, Juan Borgia, and Octavian de Valois to lay siege to Monteriggioni. After destroying the Auditore's defenses, the group walked through the gates of the town, having subdued Mario Auditore and captured both Caterina Sforza and the Apple of Eden.

Micheletto then watched his master speak to Ezio Auditore da Firenze, before Cesare shot Mario through the head. Successful in their objective, the party returned to Rome.

In August 1503, not long after the death of Octavian de Valois, Micheletto accompanied Cesare to a meeting with Francesco Troche, who had told his brother Egidio of Cesare's plans for Romagna. Egidio had sent letters to the ambassador of Venice to warn him, though these letters had been intercepted.

Francesco pleaded Cesare to spare his life, but he was ultimately strangled to death by Micheletto, and his body was thrown in the Tiber river.

Micheletto then went on to meet with a few Borgia guards, giving them costumes with which they could infiltrate the Colosseum play to kill Pietro Rossi, Lucrezia's latest lover. Unknown to him, he was being followed by the Assassin Ezio Auditore, who had sent his apprentices to assassinate all the aforementioned guards and steal the costumes they had been given.

Ezio continued to follow Micheletto to the Colosseum, where he assassinated all the Borgia arquebusiers posted there. Donning his own costume, Ezio followed Micheletto onstage, where they both joined the play.

As soon as Ezio came close to Micheletto, he stabbed him with his Hidden Blade. With the conversation that followed between the two, Micheletto revealed the fact that he had poisoned Pietro's wine as a fallback plan, and that Ezio would be too late to save him. However, Ezio did not kill Micheletto, instead sparing him and saying that in his quest to empower Cesare, Micheletto would cause his own downfall.

In Real Life:

Micheletto Corella (Micheletto Coreglia, Michele de Corella or Miguel de Corella) was a Valencian condottiero born on an unknown date in Valencia, 1470.

Known as Valentino's executioner, he and Cesare Borgia were thought to be close friends since childhood, going on to accompany one another during their studies at the University of Pisa.

On December 23rd, 1499, a Don Michele de Corella and the Bishop of Trani were left in Forli as lieutenants in Cesare Borgia's army around the time of the seizure of Forli.

In March, 1502, Corella was left by Cesare as his governor in Piombino. Corella was then dispatched to Pesaro with Ramiro de Lorqua under the order of Cesare Borgia in October, 1502. With his lances, on his way to Pesaro, Corella heard of the insurgence of the rebelling Fossombrone and Pergola, and ventured to those towns to sack them pitilessly as punishment.

Machiavelli describes a conversation Corella had with Oliverotto da Fermo on December 31st, 1502: "Therefore Don Michele rode off and joined Oliverotto, telling him that it was not right to keep his men out of their quarters, because these might be taken up by the men of the duke; and he advised him to send them at once to their quarters and to come himself to meet the duke."

On the night of December 31st, 1502, Vitellozzo Vitelli and Oliverotto da Fermo, who had been arrested under Cesare's command, were strangled to death, supposedly by Corella (hinted in Machiavelli's letter of December 31st).

In November 1503, Michele da Corella and della Volpe had gone north with seven hundred horse to support Cesare's Romagnuoli but the group were defeated in Tuscany by the army of Gianpaolo Baglioni (Rafael Sabatini, The Life of Cesare Borgia, Chapter III: Julius II) After Micheletto Corella and della Volpe were taken prisoner in 1503, Corella was first imprisoned in Florence and then in Rome where he was questioned and tortured. However, he refused to reveal the many secrets he knew about the Borgias.

He was liberated by Julius II in 1505, and thanks to Niccolò Machiavelli's mediation, was hired by Florence as bargello. He held this position for two years, until 1507.

He was killed in Milan in 1508 by some fellow countrymen although the instigator is unknown.

In Game:

The Castel Sant'Angelo, initially known as the Mausoleum of Hadrian, is a cylindrical fortress located in the Vaticano District, reachable via the Ponte Sant'Angelo. It is an end point to the Passetto di Borgo, and is found on the banks of the Tiber river.

In 1499, the Assassin Ezio Auditore da Firenze scaled the castle during his infiltration of the Cappella Sistina, in order to assassinate Pope Alexander VI.

In 1501, upon Ezio's return to Rome, he infiltrated the Castel Sant'Angelo to rescue Caterina Sforza, and to assassinate Cesare and Rodrigo Borgia. However, though he successfully rescued Caterina, he was unable to kill either of the Templars, after he discovered that Rodrigo was away from the castle, and that Cesare had left for Urbino moments after Ezio had arrived.

Soon after this assault, the castle was guarded by several Papal Guards and French soldiers, courtesy of Cesare's alliance with the French General Octavian de Valois.

In August 1503, Ezio once again infiltrated the Castel Sant'Angelo through a side gate, with a key he had obtained from Lucrezia Borgia's lover, Pietro Rossi. At a window looking into the castle's Papal apartments, he witnessed the murder of Rodrigo at the hands of Cesare. At this time, Ezio also found out the location of the Apple of Eden from Lucrezia.

Despite being the highest reachable point of any Assassin's Creed game, the flagpole atop the castle was not a view point.

In Real Life:

The Mausoleum of Hadrian, usually known as Castel Sant'Angelo (“Castle of the Holy Angel” in English), is a structure in Rome, Italy, that was originally the mausoleum of the Roman emperor Hadrian and became the burial place of the Antonine emperors until Caracalla.

It was built in AD 135–139 and converted into a fortress in the 5th century. It stands on the right bank of the Tiber River and guards the Ponte Sant’Angelo, one of the principal ancient Roman bridges. In plan, the fort is a circle surrounded by a square; each corner of the square is protected by an individually designed barbican, or outwork, while the central circle is a lofty cylinder containing halls, chapels, apartments, courtyard, and prison cells.

Throughout the Middle Ages the castle served as a refuge in times of trouble, especially for the popes, who could reach it from the Lateran through a protected passage. Clement VII took refuge there from the troops of the Holy Roman emperor Charles V during the sack of Rome in 1527. The papal apartments were substantially reconstructed for their residents, and they contain significant Renaissance decorative paintings; one lavishly decorated bedroom is attributed to Raphael. The popes used part of the castle as a prison, and eventually the building became a military barracks and prison. Giordano Bruno, for example, was imprisoned there for six years. Another prisoner was the sculptor and goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini. Executions were performed in the small inner courtyard. As a prison, it was also the setting for the third act of Giacomo Puccini's 1900 opera Tosca; the eponymous heroine leaps to her death from the Castel's ramparts.

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The military use ended in 1901, when the castle’s restoration was begun. The castle is now a museum, the Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant'Angelo. It received 1,234,443 visitors in 2016.

In Game:

The Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli is the church of the city council of Rome, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. 

During the Renaissance, the Temple was also home to a Lair of Romulus, which the Assassin Ezio Auditore da Firenze discovered during his tenure in Rome during the Renaissance. During this same period, Ezio funded the renovation of the church as one of the many buildings and monuments throughout the city that provided income for the Assassin Order.

Later, sometime after the liberation of Rome from Borgia oppression, Ezio traveled to the church and made his way through it into the Vault below, where he stored his Apple of Eden.

In 2012, Desmond Miles gained access to the basilica after entering through the underground passageway and hidden entrances from the Colosseum. There, he solved a puzzle, pulling a lever which raised a strange device, that later opened a secret entrance to the Vault beneath the church.

In Real Life:

Located on the highest summit of Capitoline Hill, the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, also known in English as Basilica of St. Mary of the Altar of Heaven, is a titular Basilica in Rome. It is still the designated Church of the city council of Rome, which uses the ancient title of Senatus Populusque Romanus. The present Cardinal Priest of the Titulus Sanctae Mariae de Aracoeli is Salvatore De Giorgi.

Little is actually known about its origin. According to some sources the church dates back to 880, while others say it was founded even before in 590 by Pope Gregory the Great. Either way, originally the church was named Sancta Maria in Capitolio, since it was sited on the Capitoline Hill of Ancient Rome; by the 14th century it had been renamed. A medieval legend included in the mid-12th-century guide to Rome, Mirabilia Urbis Romae, claimed that the church was built over an Augustan Ara primogeniti Dei, in the place where the Tiburtine Sibyl prophesied to Augustus the coming of Jesus Christ.

The foundation of the church was laid on the site of a Byzantine abbey mentioned in 574. Many buildings were built around the first church; in the upper part they gave rise to a cloister, while on the slopes of the hill a little quarter and a market grew up. Remains of these buildings - such as the little church of San Biagio de Mercato and the underlying "Insula Romana") - were discovered in the 1930s. At first the church followed the Greek rite, a sign of the power of the Byzantine exarch.

Taken over by the papacy by the 9th century, the church was given first to the Benedictines, then, by papal bull to the Franciscans in 1249–1250; under the Franciscans it received its Romanesque-Gothic aspect. The arches that divide the nave from the aisles are supported on columns, no two precisely alike, scavenged from Roman ruins.

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During the Middle Ages, this church became the center of the religious and civil life of the city. in particular during the republican experience of the 14th century, when Cola di Rienzo inaugurated the monumental stairway of 124 steps in front of the church, designed in 1348 by Simone Andreozzi, on the occasion of the Black Death.

In 1571, Santa Maria in Aracoeli hosted the celebrations honoring Marcantonio Colonna after the victorious Battle of Lepanto over the Turkish fleet. Marking this occasion, the compartmented ceiling was gilded and painted (finished 1575), to thank the Blessed Virgin for the victory. In 1797, with the Roman Republic, the basilica was deconsecrated and turned into a stable. 

The church also contains the marble tomb of Cecchino Bracci, pupil and lover of artist Michelangelo who had dedicated a number of poems in his name. The tomb's design (not the carving) is by Michelangelo.

In modern times, as the  Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli is extremely well located, in the heart of the city, near the Altare della Patria, it is very popular among visitors to the city.

In Game:

Rodrigo Borgia, born Roderic Llançol i de Borja, was the head of the Catholic Church from August 11th, 1492 until his death, serving as Pope Alexander VI. From 1476, he reigned as Grand Master of the Roman Rite of the Templar Order in Italy.

Originally hailing from Spain, Rodrigo moved to Italy where he studied and joined the Catholic Church. Using the influence he gained from his clerical position, Rodrigo conspired several plots to murder political leaders across the country to claim it under the Templar banner. As one of the wealthiest men in Europe, Rodrigo's power as Grand Master spread all over the continent.

He aspired to unite all of Italy under the Templar banner. In order to achieve that goal, he made plans to take down the leaders of Italy's main cities, and place his own men in power. Giovanni Auditore learned that Rodrigo's plans would lead him to the city of Venice, after looting a Venetian ducat from Giovanni Lampugnani. Upon traveling there, he intercepted a message from Marco and Silvio Barbarigo to their master, Rodrigo.

After Uberto Alberti and Antonio Maffei "failed" to decode the intercepted letter, the Medici and Uberto sent Giovanni to carry a copied version of the message to Rome, in order to discover who was behind the plot. Arriving in the city, Giovanni handed the message to a man, and followed the letter as it passed through several hands before meeting its final destination: Rodrigo Borgia.

Rodrigo then left to see Pope Sixtus IV, hoping to obtain military support in order to conquer Florence. After gaining Sixtus' favor, Rodrigo headed out of the Vatican, and into the streets of Rome once more. Giovanni was still on Rodrigo's trail, and followed him all the way into St. Peter's Basilica. 

After a brief fight in which Giovanni disposed of a handful of his men, Rodrigo discussed the next step in his plan with his Templar brothers, and all agreed that they had to dispose of Giovanni Auditore.

In order to get rid of Giovanni, Rodrigo conspired with Uberto Alberti and the Pazzi family. After careful planning, the Templars were able to frame Giovanni for the crimes of treason, and had him and two of his sons – Federico and Petruccio Auditore da Firenze – arrested.

The night before the trial of the Auditore family, Rodrigo resided at Uberto's house. Ezio Auditore da Firenze, Giovanni's remaining son, came by to give Uberto his father's letters that would prove him innocent. There, Ezio noticed Rodrigo behind Uberto but unaware of his importance, the young noble paid no further attention to Rodrigo; however, he refused to stay the night at Uberto's house all the same. The following morning, Rodrigo attended the judgment and execution of Giovanni, Federico and Petruccio Auditore.

In 1478, Rodrigo conspired to take down the leader of Florence, Lorenzo de' Medici, and his brother Giuliano. With this, Rodrigo left for San Gimignano, where he held a meeting with Francesco, Jacopo, and Vieri de' Pazzi. Rodrigo left the town just before the mercenaries led by Mario Auditore and his nephew Ezio attacked. Their assault resulted in the death of Vieri de' Pazzi.

Not long after that, Rodrigo met with Francesco and Jacopo de'Pazzi, Antonio Maffei, Bernardo Baroncelli, Stefano da Bagnone and Francesco Salviati in a catacomb under the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella. As the Pazzi conspirators confirmed their plan to Rodrigo, he reminded them to beware of the Assassins, and stated that the next day would be "a new dawn" for Florence.

However, Ezio thwarted the Templars' attempted takeover in Florence and killed off the remaining conspirators that Rodrigo had arranged to meet with in San Gimignano, where the Pazzi originally intended to request asylum with Rodrigo in either Venice or Rome. Jacopo, the only survivor, attended the meeting and claimed that the blame for the failure rested with his nephew, for his impatience, and with Emilio Barbarigo, for supplying the Pazzi troops with sub-standard weaponry. Enraged by Jacopo's insults and excuses, Rodrigo lectured his subordinate on his failure, then stabbed him in the abdomen with a stiletto, aided by an eager Emilio.

Ignoring Jacopo's pleas for mercy, Rodrigo stabbed him a second time in the neck with his sword, before he called out to Ezio who had tailed Jacopo to the meeting. Grabbed by Borgia guards, Ezio was brought into Rodrigo's sight. Sarcastically apologizing for killing Jacopo for him, Rodrigo mocked Ezio, saying that he had been doing this for far longer than the novice Assassin. He then ordered his men to kill him, and left without bothering to ensure the deed was done.

Soon after the Pazzi Conspiracy failed, Rodrigo returned his attention to his plans for Venice, before eventually moving to Rome, as he knew that Ezio was in the city, having killed Emilio inside his own palazzo.

In 1488, Rodrigo was responsible for shipping an Apple of Eden from Cyprus to Venice, before it was stolen by Ezio and the Italian Brotherhood of Assassins.

In 1492, via several bribes and power plays, Rodrigo won the Papal conclave, and became one of the most controversial Renaissance popes, following the death of Pope Innocent VIII in 1492, and established his power in Rome. His true intent, however, was simply to get into the Vault that lay underneath the Vatican, where he believed God resided. In 1494, with the death of Lorenzo de' Medici, the chaotic rule of his son and successor Piero, and with the power of the Apple he had obtained, Savonarola took control of Florence. Rodrigo repeatedly sent his men to Florence in the hopes of retrieving the Apple, though all of his attempts failed. In 1498, Savonarola was assassinated by Ezio, causing the Borgia family to fall into a state of chaos upon losing track of the Apple.

In 1499, Rodrigo was followed into the Vatican by Ezio for yet another assassination attempt. Ezio infiltrated the Sistine Chapel, where Rodrigo was holding Mass, and attacked him from above. However, after turning to leave, Ezio witnessed Rodrigo rise from the ground and use his Piece of Eden – the Papal Staff – to strike him down, along with everyone else in the room.

Rodrigo was surprised to see that Ezio was able to resist the power of his Staff, as Ezio had brought his own Piece of Eden: the Apple that Rodrigo had relinquished. Ezio then summoned four illusion clones of himself to assist in his battle against Rodrigo, eventually defeating him.

During the battle, Rodrigo stated that he had never believed in the Bible or in God, and had only become Pope to gain access to the Staff and the Vault, and to unify Italy under Templar rule. Ezio defeated Rodrigo, holding the Pope at blade-point and telling him he was not the Prophet, and that he had never been.

Broken by this revelation and accepting defeat, Rodrigo told Ezio to kill him and put an end to it. However, Ezio refused, saying that killing him would not bring back his family. Additionally, the knowledge that he was not the Prophet, as he had believed, was an even sorer blow than anything else that Ezio could have thought of.

When Rodrigo's son Cesare learned of this, he led a siege on Monteriggioni, though without Rodrigo's approval, in order to reacquire the Apple of Eden and kill the last of the Assassins. By this time, Rodrigo was reduced to nothing but a figurehead, with Cesare ultimately taking over Rome.

Broken by his defeat in the Vault, Rodrigo gave up on fighting the Assassin Order and instead chose to attempt to preserve the Templars' power in Rome. However, Cesare was eager to take over all of Italy, a plan that Rodrigo did not approve of. As the Captain General of the Papal armies, however, Cesare held control over Rodrigo's military, and so he was able to carry out his plans without his father's consent.

In August 1503, Rodrigo, already heavily displeased with Cesare's ambition and entitlement, believed his son to be out of control. Fearing Cesare would jeopardize everything he had worked to maintain, Rodrigo decided that his best option would be to remove Cesare. To achieve this, he seized Lucrezia's supply of cantarella – the same poison that had been used for Doge Mocenigo – and poisoned a few apples for Cesare to unwittingly eat. However, Rodrigo's daughter Lucrezia discovered the theft of the poison, and warned Cesare about it before he could ingest enough for the toxin to kill him. Enraged, Cesare promptly spat out what he had eaten, before shoving the remaining apple down Rodrigo's throat. Rodrigo perished before Ezio arrived to kill him, but Ezio nevertheless gave Rodrigo his final blessing.

In Real Life:

Rodrigo Borgia was born January 1st, 1431 near Valencia into the Spanish branch of the prominent and powerful Borgia family. His uncle Alonso de Borgia, bishop of Valencia (later cardinal), supervised his education and endowed him with ecclesiastical benefices while still in his teens. Rodrigo studied law at Bologna, and on February 22nd, 1456, he was created a cardinal by his uncle, now Pope Calixtus III. As vice chancellor of the Roman Catholic church, Rodrigo amassed enormous wealth and, despite a severe rebuke from Pope Pius II, lived as a Renaissance prince. He patronized the arts and fathered a number of children for whom he provided livings, mainly in Spain. By a Roman noblewoman, Vannozza Catanei, he had four subsequently legitimized offspring—Juan, Cesare, Jofré, and Lucrezia—whose complicated careers troubled his pontificate.

Despite the shadow of simony that surrounded the disposal of his benefices among the papal electors, Rodrigo emerged from a tumultuous conclave on the night of August 10th to 11th, 1492, as Pope Alexander VI and received the acclaim of the Roman populace. He embarked upon a reform of papal finances and a vigorous pursuit of the war against the Ottoman Turks. His position was menaced by the French king Charles VIII, who invaded Italy in 1494 to vindicate his claim to the Kingdom of Naples. Charles, at the instigation of a rival cardinal of the influential della Rovere family, threatened the pope with deposition and the convocation of a reform council. Politically isolated, Alexander sought assistance from the Turkish sovereign, Bayezid II. In the course of the pope’s meeting with King Charles in Rome in early 1495, however, he received the traditional obeisance from the French monarch. He still refused to support the king’s claim to Naples and, by an alliance with Milan, Venice, and the Holy Roman emperor, eventually forced the French to withdraw from Italy.

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In September 1493 Alexander created his teenage son Cesare a cardinal, along with Alessandro Farnese (the brother of the papal favorite Giulia la Bella and the future pope Paul III). In the course of his pontificate Alexander appointed 47 cardinals to further his complicated dynastic, ecclesiastical, and political policies. His son Juan was made duke of Gandía (Spain) and was married to Maria Enriquez, the cousin of King Ferdinand IV of Castile; Jofré was married to Sancia, the granddaughter of the king of Naples; and Lucrezia was given first to Giovanni Sforza of Milan, and, when that marriage was annulled by papal decree on the grounds of impotence, she was married to Alfonso of Aragon. Upon his assassination Lucrezia received as a third husband Alfonso I d’Este, duke of Ferrara.

Tragedy struck the papal household on June 14th, 1497, when Alexander’s favorite son, Juan, was murdered. Gravely afflicted, Alexander announced a reform program and called for measures to restrain the luxury of the papal court, reorganize the Apostolic Chancery, and repress simony and concubinage. Alexander had shown great forbearance in dealing with the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola, who usurped political control in Florence in 1494, condemned the evils of the papal court, and called for the pope’s deposition, and, even before the friar’s downfall in May 1498, theologians and men of affairs had expressed support for the papacy. Meanwhile, however, Alexander had returned to a policy of political intrigue.

Cesare resigned the cardinalate in 1498 and married Charlotte d’Albret in order to cement the Borgia alliance with the French king Louis XII, whose request for a marriage annulment was granted by the pope. By a ruthless policy of siege and assassination, Cesare brought the north of Italy under his control; he conquered the duchies of Romagna, Umbria, and Emilia and earned the admiration of Niccolò Machiavelli, who used Cesare as the model for his classic on politics, The Prince. In Rome, Alexander destroyed the power of the Orsini and Colonna families and concluded an alliance with Spain, granting Isabella and Ferdinand the title of Catholic sovereigns. In 1493, in the wake of Christopher Columbus’ epochal discoveries, and at the request of Ferdinand and Isabella, Alexander issued a bull granting Spain the exclusive right to explore the seas and claim all New World lands lying west of a north-south line 100 leagues (about 320 miles) west of the Cape Verde Islands. Portugal was granted similar rights of exploration east of the demarcation line. This papal disposition, which was never subsequently recognized by any other European power, was jointly amended by Spain and Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494.

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As a patron of the arts, Alexander erected a center for the University of Rome, restored the Castel Sant’Angelo, built the monumental mansion of the Apostolic Chancery, embellished the Vatican palaces, and persuaded Michelangelo to draw plans for the rebuilding of St. Peter’s Basilica. He proclaimed the year 1500 a Holy Year of Jubilee and authorized its celebration with great pomp. He also promoted the evangelization of the New World.

Attempts to whitewash Alexander’s private conduct have proved abortive. While his religious convictions cannot be challenged, scandal accompanied his activities throughout his career. Even from a Renaissance viewpoint, his relentless pursuit of political goals and unremitting efforts to aggrandize his family were seen as excessive. Neither as corrupt as depicted by Machiavelli and by gossip nor as useful to the church’s expansion as apologists would make him, Alexander VI holds a high place on the list of the so-called bad popes.