Have you watched The Borgias?

If the answer is no, I am going to make the same recommendation I made years ago: please correct this immediately.

Jeremy Irons being magnificently Jeremy Irons as Rodrigo Borgia. François Arnaud stalking through Renaissance Italy as Cesare. Holliday Grainger somehow making Lucrezia look increasingly formidable while wearing enough silk, pearls and embroidered velvet to bankrupt a minor principality.

What more do you need?

The series ran for only three seasons, from 2011 to 2013, and I remain offended by this fact. It was lavish, melodramatic, murderous, occasionally ridiculous and extraordinarily beautiful. In other words, exactly the sort of television I am genetically programmed to enjoy.

And before the historians come through the windows: no, I do not watch The Borgias as a documentary.

The real Borgia family is infinitely more complicated than the collection of poisonings, affairs, conspiracies and spectacular entrances television naturally prefers. But historical drama does not have to replace history to make me interested in it. Sometimes it does the opposite.

You watch one episode because Jeremy Irons looks fabulous in papal red, and three hours later you are reading about the conclave of 1492.

This is how they get you.

The costumes. Obviously.

Honestly, I could remove the plot entirely and still watch this series for the clothes.

The costumes are not simply pretty historical dresses placed on attractive actors. They are part of the visual storytelling. Lucrezia in particular changes enormously across the three seasons, and her wardrobe changes with her.

At first there is softness: pale colours, delicate fabrics, loose hair, an almost deliberately innocent quality. Then everything becomes richer, sharper and more controlled. The jewels get heavier. The silhouettes become more commanding. The little girl surrounded by people making decisions for her gradually learns how decisions are made.

And it wasn't merely me being distracted by embroidery. The costume work was genuinely award-winning.

Costume designer Gabriella Pescucci and her team won Emmys for the series, which feels completely reasonable once you look at virtually any scene. There are brocades, velvets, elaborate sleeves, ecclesiastical robes, jewellery, headpieces and approximately seventeen million metres of fabric moving beautifully through candlelight.

My professional analysis remains: oooh, pretty.

Cesare, unfortunately

Then there is Cesare Borgia.

I would like the record to show that I am perfectly capable of understanding that a character is dangerous, violent, morally questionable and generally a terrible romantic prospect while simultaneously possessing functioning eyes.

François Arnaud's Cesare begins the series trapped in clerical robes he clearly does not want and spends three seasons becoming progressively more dangerous, ambitious and dramatically dressed.

This is called character development.

And Lucrezia

Lucrezia is probably the reason the series becomes more interesting rather than less interesting as it goes on.

She starts surrounded by men who assume she is useful primarily as a daughter who can be married strategically. She watches. She learns. She discovers very quickly that being underestimated is its own form of power.

And Holliday Grainger gives her enough warmth that the transformation never feels like someone suddenly flipped a switch marked evil Renaissance woman.

She simply becomes better at surviving the world she was born into.

The real tragedy: three seasons

The most irritating part of rediscovering The Borgias is remembering that it simply stops.

Creator Neil Jordan had conceived more story, but Showtime ended the series after its third season. So you get all this gorgeous escalation — alliances changing, Cesare becoming Cesare, Lucrezia discovering exactly how much power she can wield — and then:

Goodbye.

Rude.

Still, three seasons of The Borgias are considerably better than no seasons of The Borgias.

Watch it for the performances. Watch it for Renaissance politics. Watch it because the historical Borgias are fascinating enough to send you down an entirely separate rabbit hole afterwards.

But most importantly:

watch it for the clothes.