Vatican Spy Rings

Does nature or nurture shape who we are? Does our personality come from our genes, or the environment we live in? Countless scientific studies on the subject have been published. But one such study – a collaboration between a psychoanalyst and a New York adoption agency – was ins ...  Show more

James Angleton ran counterintelligence for the CIA for 20 years. His job was to find Soviet spies hiding inside Western intelligence. He was brilliant, obsessive, and almost certainly right that the threat of a mole was real. But the hunt he launched tore the CIA apart from the i ...  Show more

Now wearing the papal tiara, Pope Alexander VI was determined to root out the corruption that had plagued Rome and the Vatican. But as his papacy continued, rumors began to spread that the Spanish pope was guilty of his own corruption, murder, and incest. Learn more about your ad ...  Show more

Best remembered for his invention of the calendar we still use today, Pope Gregory XIII became a voice for reform in the Catholic Church by pulling the Vatican out of the dark ages and into the modern era. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices 

Elevated into power by his uncle, Pope Calixtus III, Rodrigo Borgia became instrumental in settling affairs throughout the Papal States. As a cardinal, he orchestrated the election of popes for decades — all the while biding his time before making his own moves to become a pope h ...  Show more

Giovanni de' Medici was a shrewd strategist who became pope before the age of 40. As a cardinal, he ended the Medicis’ exile in Florence, returning the dynasty to their seat of power. As pope, he would nearly bankrupt the Vatican — and upend the Christian world. Learn more about ...  Show more