Cesare Borgia, one of the most infamous of the Borgia family, indeed labelled by some as ‘the most handsome, dashing, and despicable Borgia of all’, was killed in battle 510 years ago today. He is considered the inspiration for Niccolò Machiavelli’s political treatise The Prince, but he also figures often in a diary kept by the papal court’s Master of Ceremonies at the time, Johannes Burchardus.