- Alessandro Farnese: If a person ceased to feel guilt, he would no longer be a person. When we accept our sins, responsibility for our actions, that is when we approach the Divine.
- Cesare Borgia: Are your words worth the air they fill?
- Rodrigo Borgia: I will grant you my title as Legate.
- Jorge Da Costa: You will offer land in addition to coin? That is a bold step.
- Rodrigo Borgia: I have more acreage than Sforza.
- Jorge Da Costa: But Perugia? Why choose to give away such a title, such income?
- Rodrigo Borgia: The Pope is the servant of the servants of God. Title enough for any man.
- Jorge Da Costa: I think you're starting to believe your own words, my friend.
- Cardinal Sforza: [removing Rodrigo's note from his chicken] Keep your greasy diocese. Give the chicken to Gherardo. I like mine without the taste of hypocrisy.
- Cesare Borgia: Is it possible to commit a sin for the right reason? And does that then make the action good, a sin no longer? In those circumstances, at what point would one feel guilt?
- Francesco Remolino d'Ilerda: I will tell you, when the sin is abhorrent, unnatural.
- Cesare Borgia: Unnatural? Say for a father to kill his son?
- Francesco Remolino d'Ilerda: Yes.
- Cesare Borgia: As God the Father did, sending Jesus to us, knowing He'd be crucified. God is unnatural.
- Francesco Remolino d'Ilerda: You blaspheme!
- Filippo Decio: Tonight, you are to take the first step on your path to the priesthood. Tonsure. His Excellency, the Bishop, will cut the hair on the top of your head, symbolizing your obedience to God. Spend the rest of the day reflecting on your worthiness.
- Alessandro Farnese: [as they exit] Are you worthy, Cesare?
- Cesare Borgia: Are any of us?
- Giovanni De Medici: [to Rodrigo] I am trying not to listen to you, but I can still see your mouth move.
- Cardinal Sforza: Savelli is witnessing the Holy Ghost.
- Rodrigo Borgia: Shadows on a ceiling, or a ghost. But not holy.
- Cardinal Sforza: You are good at moving money. Like a Spanish Jew.
- Rodrigo Borgia: Hmm. Or a Milanese banker.
- Cardinal Sforza: You shuffled four mules loaded with coin out of the Vatican treasury.
- Rodrigo Borgia: As a precaution.
- Cardinal Sforza: Let us rob the bank to save it?
- Rodrigo Borgia: I do not need to steal. I have enough gold, silver and rare gems to fill the Sistine to its rafters.
- Cardinal Sforza: Shall we see who can fill which room with what?
- Rodrigo Borgia: Perhaps I have not mastered the Milanese dialect as well as I thought. I speak not out of pride, but in friendship As Vice Chancellor, you can become rich. Richer than you are, richer than you know.
- Cardinal Sforza: Yes, but there is a problem with that. You would be Pope. Do you understand my dialect now?
- Francesco Remolino d'Ilerda: [about Cesare] He has done the unspeakable.
- Alessandro Farnese: He is our friend. And we've both, in our short lives, committed our share of misguided acts.
- Francesco Remolino d'Ilerda: But we did so knowing they were wrong. He believes he has done good.
- Rodrigo Borgia: Common men always choose to believe the worst about the noble class. Our transgressions give the poor a sense of cosmic equality.
- Rodrigo Borgia: You were expected to vote for me.
- Maffeo Gherardo: You and Sforza, your pact, excreted in the toilet. A vote for you puts my soul in danger.
- Johann Burchard: Tomorrow I will schedule a meeting to discuss redecorating these chambers.
- Rodrigo Borgia: No. I will build new apartments.
- Johann Burchard: *We* will build new apartments.
- Rodrigo Borgia: You and I?
- Johann Burchard: No. You are "We" now.
- Rodrigo Borgia: Yes. I am "We." I speak for the souls of mankind.
- [last lines]
- Cesare Borgia: [hurrying in] Fiametta! Fiametta, our child! He is alive. I give you my word, I will...