Many of its characters were real people, including Niccolò Machiavelli, Duarte Brandão and members of the Borgia family.

The Family focuses on this cunning, ambitious despot and his children—the ruthless Cesare and the beautiful but wicked Lucrezia.

Her final marriage, to Alfonso d'Este, was a success, though neither partner was faithful: she bore her third husband a number of children and proved to be a respectable and accomplished duchess, effectively rising above her previous reputation and surviving the fall of the Borgias following her father's death.

Pope Alexander aims to unify Italy's feudal states under papal rule.

As in Puzo's The Godfather, the lovemaking, the opulent festivities, the sub rosa plotting, and the complex double-dealing are interspersed with outbursts of violence, including one memorable scene in which the reformist priest Girolamo Savonarola is torn apart on the Rack.