Recasting an Enfant Terrible

His licentiousness and nepotism aside, Pope Alexander VI did do some good for the Catholic Church. Notably he left behind the Room of Mysteries in his apartment, adorned with paintings by Pinturicchio, donated the first gold from the New World for the ceiling of St Mary Major's, added the Holy Doors at St Peter's, commissioned Michelangelo to sculpt the Pieta, instituted Church reforms, encouraged science and the arts, resisted attempts to banish Jews from Spain and gave to the world St Francis Borgia, second founder of the Jesuits.

(The above was prompted by an article on the unveiling of the restored Sala dei Mysterii a fortnight ago and some of the facts have been taken from it.)