1498

On 17 August 1498, Cesare Borgia became the first person in history to resign the cardinalate. Trading his red hat for a French duchy and an army, he became the lethal blueprint for Machiavelli's Prince.

On 23 May 1498, Girolamo Savonarola was hanged and burned in Florence. His rise as a democratic theocrat and his fall under a corrupt pope expose the dark populist currents of the Renaissance and the birth of modern realpolitik.