Qualla: Tower and walls of the Borgias https://qualla.com/tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:38:46 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/z/t/tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Tower and walls of the Borgias https://qualla.com/tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias Tower and walls of the Borgias: Introduction https://qualla.com/tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias/ Photo credit Alberto Julbe, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Borgias are remembered for poison, intrigue, and a papacy soaked in scandal — Cesare's ambition, Lucrezia's legend, a family name that Renaissance Rome learned to fear. But the dynasty did not begin in Italy. It began in a modest tower in the farm country of interior Valencia, in the small town of Canals, where a cadet branch of the Borja family held a minor lordship. Here, in 1378, a child was born who would carry the name all the way to the throne of Saint Peter.

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Image: Alberto Julbe | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/z/t/tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias-wp/eyzt-tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Tower and walls of the Borgias: A Tower Older Than the Name https://qualla.com/tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias/ Photo credit Alberto Julbe, CC BY-SA 4.0. Long before any Borja lived here, this was a piece of Islamic Al-Andalus. The tower rose in the 13th century, in the last generations of Muslim rule over this stretch of the Valencian interior, one of the fortified points that studded the region. When Christian lords took over, t...

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Image: Alberto Julbe | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/z/t/tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias-wp/eyzt-tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias-a-tower-older-than-the-name.mp3 0:06 2 full Tower and walls of the Borgias: The Boy Born Behind These Walls https://qualla.com/tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias/ Photo credit Alberto Julbe, CC BY-SA 4.0. In this palace, in 1378, Alfonso de Borja was born. He trained as a lawyer, taught canon law at the University of Lleida, and served the Kings of Aragon as a diplomat — a careful, scholarly man, not an obvious candidate for legend. In 1455, already elderly, he was elected pope an...

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Image: Alberto Julbe | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/z/t/tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias-wp/eyzt-tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias-the-boy-born-behind-these-walls.mp3 0:06 3 full Tower and walls of the Borgias: The Seat of a Lordship https://qualla.com/tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias/ Photo credit Alberto Julbe, CC BY-SA 4.0. This was no accidental birthplace. The palace was the power base of the cadet Borja line that had spread from nearby Xàtiva, and it carried the title to the Señorío de Torre de Canals — the small lordship that gave the family its rank and its foothold. From these rooms the Borjas...

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]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/z/t/tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias-wp/eyzt-tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias-the-seat-of-a-lordship.mp3 0:06 4 full Tower and walls of the Borgias: Rescued from the Margins https://qualla.com/tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias/ Photo credit Alberto Julbe, CC BY-SA 4.0. For centuries the building drifted toward the edge of memory, an old pile in a town most travelers pass without stopping. In 1995 the town hall of Canals bought the tower and restored it, and in 2000 it was formally protected as a Bien de Interés Cultural, Spain's designation for...

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]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/z/t/tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias-wp/eyzt-tower-and-walls-of-the-borgias-rescued-from-the-margins.mp3 0:06 5 full