Prior to becoming pope, he was a skilled lawyer with diplomatic abilities, a man of upstanding morals, who abided by celibacy. When he assumed St. Peter’s throne, he brought a whole team of his relatives and compatriots from Aragon and Catalonia, whom he entrusted with higher and lower offices, and who loyally, but not without substantial financial benefit, aided him in governing the State of the Church. This is how his nephew Rodrigo Borgia, the latter Pope Alexander VI came to Rome, along with his brother and two other nephews, who became the political base of the pope and a lever of his power. Some of them also became cardinals. This unprecedented „invasion” from the Iberian Peninsula, their self-confidence and often arrogant behavior, raised Roman discontent.

Despite his illness, the pope exhibited energy and surprising liveliness. To a large extent it concerned the organization of a crusade with the aim to recover Constantinople, which had just been occupied by the Turks. Unfortunately, the enormous propaganda, did not do much to move the then European rulers, who had no intention of spilling blood for a distant city on the Bosporus. All the unprecedented acts of sale of papal valuables and using private papal money to build a fleet came to nothing – the voice of the pope was a solitary one. The idea of the crusade and the taxes collected for this reason also did not bring him any popularity in Rome itself, similarly to the unprecedented act forbidding conflicts with the Jewish community. The pope was also the initiator of a revision of the trial of Joan of Arc, which resulted in her rehabilitation and canonization.

Callixtus III was not interested in art and architecture. During his three-year long pontificate he had neither the time, nor the money for it. All of these went to the project of the crusade, apanages for family members and an expanded administration. Nevertheless in his testament the pope designated 5 thousand ducats for the construction of a hospital in a house, in which he had previously lived, prior to assuming St. Peter’s throne.

The death of the pope filled the Romans with joy. The crowds goaded by the Orsini and  Colonna families (as was customary after the death of each Bishop of Rome), moved to occupy the residences of Callixtus’s followers from Aragon and Catalonia, robbing and killing, among others, the brother of Rodrigo – Pedro Borgia. Surprisingly, Rodrigo not only managed to stay alive, but he also kept all the offices entrusted to him (indefinitely), including the most profitable and most influential office of Vice-Chancellor of the Curia. However, he had to wait many years (four pontificates) for the papal tiara, and after obtaining it, raised such discontent, that afterwards all traces of his pontificate were to be removed. In this way his uncle also became the victim of this disapproval. And just as his nephew, for centuries he could not find posthumous peace. If there exists a form of earthly punishment, which endures only because of one’s surname, then Callixtus III suffered because of it – a pope from the Borgia family. However, in the beginning everything seemed to be all right. After the death of Callixtus III, Rodrigo funded a monumental tomb for him, with a prostrate figure of the pontifex in the rotunda of St. Andrew adjacent to St. Peter’s Basilica (San Pietro in Vaticano). Alexander VI was also buried there. However, in 1586, the earthly remains of both popes (already in one coffin) were transferred to another location in the old basilica. At the beginning of the XVII century, after construction of the new church was completed, they were completely removed. The empty tomb of Callixtus III is still today located in the Vatican Grottos. It is adorned with fragments of a Renaissance altar. Next to a beautiful bas-relief depicting Man of Sorrows (Vir Dolorum) on the right we can see the pope’s compatriot from the Iberian Peninsula – Vincent Ferrerius, a famous, Dominican preacher, whom Callixtus III had canonized. On the other hand, the earthly remains of the pope were put in a rather inconspicuous national church of the Catalonians Santa Maria in Monserrato (via di Monserrato). They were kept in the sacristy there, in a lead coffin all the way to 1889. Then at the initiative of the King of Spain, the final tomb (it seems), fifth in succession  was created for the Borgias, a modest one (immediately behind the enterance), decorated with equally modest medallions.