Mario Puzo first answered that question in his landmark bestseller The Godfather, with the creation of the Corleones. Now, thirty years later, Puzo enriches us all with his ultimate vision of the subject: the story of the greatest crime family in Italian history -- the Borgias.

In The Family, this singular novelist transports his readers back to fifteenth-century Rome, and reveals to us the extravagance and intrigue of the Vatican as surely as he once revealed the secrets of the Mafia. At the story's center is Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, a man whose lustful appetites were matched only by his consuming love of family. Surrounding him are his extraordinary children: simple, unloved Jofre; irascible, heartless Juan; beautiful, strong-willed Lucrezia; and passionate warrior Cesare, Machiavelli's friend and inspiration. Their stories constitute a symphony of human emotion and behavior, from pride to romance to jealousy to betrayal and murderous rage.

A labor of love two decades in the making, The Family marks the final triumph of one of the greatest storytellers of our time.