The great man is one who can put into words the will of his age,

I've got some time right now, so I'm going to condense what I've been tl;dr'ing about and make it more directly applicable to Cesare. Reading about the historical figure is what got me interested in this topic in the first place a couple years ago. There's a biography about him by Sarah Bradford that I really like. It's definitely part of the apologetic movement, but I prefer those anyway in his case for various reasons. She mentions ethnicity as something that is key to understanding why he was doing the things that he was in her introduction but then pretty much drops it for the rest of her book. It comes up once or twice and starts to raise some interesting questions (the keywords for this icon are quoting part of one of them) but she never explores them. I was disappointed by this, even more so when I realized that it wasn't just her--no one talks about this. I don't mean that nobody talks about Cesare's Italian/Spanish background, I mean that I've barely been able to find anything on the subject of ethnicity in the Italian Renaissance at all.

Anyway, this is a subject that comes up in the manga as well (ironically, making it proportionately the most in-depth look at how ethnicity affected Cesare), giving me ample excuse to explain a few things.

( I wished for things that I don't need / and what I chased won't set me free )

( okay, whatever, cut to the good bit )

There. Done. Now to go finish Christmas shopping! o/;;