- Rodrigo Borgia: Cesare is both your cousin and your new commander. You will lead our Papal Guard, as you've yearned to do in the past.
- Cesare Borgia: I do not walk in the past, father, I run towards the future. As soon as my train is ready, I depart for France to marry Princess Carlotta.
- Rodrigo Borgia: King Federigo does not want you to marry his daughter, nor does she.
- Cesare Borgia: A woman's mind is cleaner than a man's, she changes it more often.
- [first lines]
- Rodrigo Borgia: [drinking his medicine] La Bella, you startled me.
- Giulia Farnese: The weather startles you, my love? I am here to soothe you.
- Rodrigo Borgia: These last several weeks I have not been consistent in my affections. But Giulia, I do love you.
- [pours the drug into her mouth]
- Lucrezia Borgia: Alfonso? Where are you going?
- Alfonso di Calabria: To hunt.
- Lucrezia Borgia: You would rather chase wild deer than cuddle with your wife?
- Alfonso di Calabria: Familiarity kills romance...
- Alessandro Farnese: A word, Herr Burchard. You are to release the papal scribes from service.
- Johann Burchard: But no. The church relies upon this office replicating important documents, issuing Papal Bulls...
- Alessandro Farnese: The future's not in quills but in typeface.
- [to moving men]
- Alessandro Farnese: You may set it down right here.
- Johann Burchard: A printing press? Why?
- Alessandro Farnese: Because, Herr Burchard, printing will save the Church money.
- Johann Burchard: [under his breath] Or be its downfall.
- Alessandro Farnese: Holiness, I reviewed the treasury ledgers. Debt grows while assets decline. The church must secure new means of income. I began this process by dismissing the papal scribes, and installing a printing press under the supervision of renowned artisan Aldus Manutius of Venice.
- [a general uproar among the Cardinals]
- Alessandro Farnese: We are but a few years from the birth of a new century, and the Church must keep in step. We will do so with the printed word. A Holy Bible, made here in the Apostolic Palace.
- Ascanio Sforza: The printed word is not to be trusted. Misprints are too rampant.
- Alessandro Farnese: No, misprints can be corrected. And besides, many a near-sighted monk has made mistakes copying.
- Ascanio Sforza: Only priests can interpret the Word of God. Yet with this machine, even the lowest peasant now has a Bible in his hut. Holiness. Holiness, my faith lies with the pen, not with the press.
- Rodrigo Borgia: Our face... faith lies with Cardinal Farnese to correct our fiscal misfortune.
- Ascanio Sforza: [laughs] Then let his Eminence prove the machine's worth.
- Alessandro Farnese: In one month scribes produced one Bible. I will bind ten in two days.
- [all laugh]
- Vannozza Catanei: Cesare, he's your nephew, he must remain safe.
- Cesare Borgia: Do not confuse my past actions with my present self. The boy who left his son to die is gone. I would never put Lucrezia's son in jeopardy.
- Juan Borgia Lanzol: We are worried about your good health.
- Giulia Farnese: Worry about His Holiness, dear Borgia cousin. He is a poor helmsman. He waits for the wind to blow his sails.
- Juan Borgia Lanzol: Giulia is a slave to a potent drug. You alone can free her. Be the man your family needs.
- Alessandro Farnese: All my life I've been pestered to be that man. My mother, my sister. You Borgia have pestered me like ticks on a dog's skin. Look around, Lanzol. I am *being* the man, right here, right now. And you want me to rush to Giulia's side because she whines for attention. If I fail here tonight, I will once again be Fregnese. That cannot happen! Today, I make history.
- Juan Borgia Lanzol: History will wait, Alessandro. Your sister will not.
- Cesare Borgia: [to his little boy] Be not afraid, little one. I know we are strangers now, but one day I hope to earn a place in your heart. I hold great plans for you, my son. But at this moment I do you more good from afar. You must grow up to be your own man, to live in no one's shadow so that you may surpass all of us. Whatever comes, you always have your father's love.
- [last lines]
- Lucrezia Borgia: I knew you would be here. I could not sleep last night. I could not stop thinking about you. What you have done for me, who you are to me. You do not have to go.
- Cesare Borgia: I am naked without land or title.
- Lucrezia Borgia: And that is when I want you most.
- Cesare Borgia: Our family's survival depends on my success in Lyon, or we will perish when our father's no longer pope. There are too many enemies. We must make new and powerful allies.
- Lucrezia Borgia: You're a good man, Cesare.
- Cesare Borgia: [suddenly starts kissing her, then stops] No. No. Stop. I must depart.
- Agapito Geraldini: [interrupts] You told me to bring this when it was finished. From the blacksmith, Whittaker.
- Cesare Borgia: [to Lucrezia] My new sword and scabbard. The Goddess of Peace. Created in your image. I will come back for you one day, as an emperor.
- Cesare Borgia: History will wait, Alessandro. Your sister will not.
- Michelotto: They did not like what they saw.