The series follows the rise of the Borgia family to the pinnacle of the Roman Catholic Church and their struggles to maintain their grip on power.
On August 12, 2013, it was announced that the two-hour series finale script would be released as an e-book, after it was determined that a movie would be too expensive to produce. A fan campaign was started in an attempt to convince Showtime to revive the series. The cancellation was implied to be due to the expense of production, with plans for a two-hour wrap-up finale also scrapped. On June 5, 2013, Showtime canceled the series, a season short of Jordan's planned four-season arc for the series.
On May 4, 2012, Showtime ordered a third season of 10 episodes, which premiered on April 14, 2013. The second season premiered on April 8, 2012. Eastern ( UTC−04:00) on Bravo! in Canada, and received its first major television network premiere on June 21, 2011, on Canada's CTV Television Network. ET on Showtime in the United States and 10 p.m. Colm Feore also stars as Cardinal della Rovere (later Pope Julius II). It stars Jeremy Irons as Pope Alexander VI with François Arnaud as Cesare, Holliday Grainger as Lucrezia and David Oakes as Juan. Mercilessly cruel and defiantly decadent, the Borgias use bribery, simony, intimidation and murder in their relentless quest for wealth and power that make them history's most infamous crime family. The series is set in Renaissance-era Italy and follows the Borgia family in their scandalous ascension to the papacy. The Borgias is a historical-fiction drama television series created by Neil Jordan it debuted in 2011 and was canceled in 2013.