The winter of 1451 was one of the coldest in Europe. The continent was still in the clutches of a mini ice age that had lasted for nearly a century and had left famine, disease, and the dreaded Black Death in its path. It had also brought in hungry invaders and marauders from central Asia in search of food and warmth. These ravenous intruders followed the path of their great ancestors, the Mongolian hordes of Genghis Khan, who had ravaged Russia and the Middle East two centuries earlier, except this time around they cast their eyes further into conquering the whole of Europe. The mightiest of those invading tribes were the brutal Ottomans, who, by mid fifteenth century, had conquered all of Asia Minor, parts of the Middle East, and most of the Balkans. In that brutally cold winter, an impetuous and sometimes vicious young man succeeded to the throne of the mighty Turkish Ottoman Empire. The young man, who took the name of Mohammed II was barely nineteen years old. His father, Sultan Murat II, On his deathbed, made him promise that he would try to achieve the victory that had eluded the Ottoman rulers for over three hundred years: the conquest of Constantinople. At that time, Constantinople was the last outpost of Western civilization at the tail end of Europe. The city was surrounded on all sides by hostile Muslim forces. No sooner had Murat died than Mohammed began preparations for a great battle between the two major civilizations. On the other side of Mediterranean, nearly two thousand miles away, there was another young nobleman -Rodrigo Borgia- who would take the leading role in the ensuing conflict, yet he had no land or money and was unaware of the role he would play in the destiny of the world. When the Pope summoned young Rodrigo Borgia, the impoverished knight did not know that he would be entrusted with a mission against the deadliest enemy of Europe. The naive knight did not expect that his life would be in danger from traitors in his own camp, on a daily basis. His mission was simple; find the True Cross, save it from the Ottoman Turks and bring it back to Rome! What he did not expect was the vicious Turkish Sultan who knew about every step that he took and had his own plans to destroy Rodrigo Borgia and his Templar Knight friend. When, Princess Aziza, the virgin 16-year-old sister of the Sultan, left her palace to be married to Abdullah, the Butcher of the Balkans, she did not know that she would be entangled in the deadliest game of betrayal and love that would change a whole civilization and shape the life of the world, as we know it today. When Rodrigo kidnapped the virgin princess in a desolate mountain pass in Serbia, he did not know that he was risking the future of Europe in one action.Then Rodrigo and his new love were captured. The rest is history, but Rodrigo Borgia became the infamous, Borgia Pope. This fact based story is a tale of forbidden love and lust laced with venomous hate during the last conflict between Muslims and Christians. The Borgia Seed is the story of Rodrigo Borgia, then a peasant knight, who kidnapped the sister of the Turkish sultan only to fall in love with her and embarked on a dangerous journey to rescue the holiest object of Christianity, which had been lost for generations? Contains erotic poetry from Princess Aziza's diary.
About the Author: Richard Tara, also known as Ricardo Barberini, is a published author. His books have been published by Prentice-Hall, Sylvie Breard and Borgia Press. He is also a movie critic and has written numerous reviews that have been published. Richard is a current contributing editor of the mainstream movie site, www.moviebuffs.com. He has a vast knowledge of history and practice of film making during the golden years of film making, the decades between the 40's and 60's. Richard is a painter and an exhibited photographer. Richard has always had an intense love for history and specializes in Medieval History and the Second World War. He is considered an authority in both areas by some and probably knows more about history than many history professors.