








CHAPTER VII - CONCERNING NEW PRINCIPALITIES WHICH ARE ACQUIRED EITHER BY THE ARMS OF OTHERS OR BY GOOD FORTUNE

THOSE who solely by good fortune become princes from being private
citizens have little trouble in rising, but much in keeping atop; they
have not any difficulties on the way up, because they fly, but they
have many when they reach the summit. Such are those to whom some
state is given either for money or by the favour of him who bestows
it; as happened to many in Greece, in the cities of Ionia and of the
Hellespont, where princes were made by Darius, in order that they
might hold the cities both for his security and his glory; as also
were those emperors who, by the corruption of the soldiers, from being
citizens came to empire. Such stand simply upon the goodwill and the
fortune of him who has elevated them- two most inconstant and unstable
things. Neither have they the knowledge requisite for the position;
because, unless they are men of great worth and ability, it is not
reasonable to expect that they should know how to command, having
always lived in a private condition; besides, they cannot hold it
because they have not forces which they can keep friendly and
faithful.

States that rise unexpectedly, then, like all other things in nature
which are born and grow rapidly, cannot have their foundations and
relations with other states fixed in such a way that the first storm
will not overthrow them; unless, as is said, those who unexpectedly
become princes are men of so much ability that they know they have
to be prepared at once to hold that which fortune has thrown into
their laps, and that those foundations, which others have laid
before they became princes, they must lay afterwards.

Concerning these two methods of rising to be a prince by ability
or fortune, I wish to adduce two examples within our own recollection,
and these are Francesco Sforza and Cesare Borgia. Francesco, by proper
means and with great ability, from being a private person rose to be
Duke of Milan, and that which he had acquired with a thousand
anxieties he kept with little trouble. On the other hand, Cesare
Borgia, called by the people Duke Valentino, acquired his state during
the ascendancy of his father, and on its decline he lost it,
notwithstanding that he had taken every measure and done all that
ought to be done by a wise and able man to fix firmly his roots in the
states which the arms and fortunes of others had bestowed on him.

Because, as is stated above, he who has not first laid his
foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but
they will be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the
building. If, therefore, all the steps taken by the duke be
considered, it will be seen that he laid solid foundations for his
future power, and I do not consider it superfluous to discuss them,
because I do not know what better precepts to give a new prince than
the example of his actions; and if his dispositions were of no
avail, that was not his fault, but the extraordinary and extreme
malignity of fortune.

Alexander VI, in wishing to aggrandize the duke, his son, had many
immediate and prospective difficulties. Firstly, he did not see his
way to make him master of any state that was not a state of the
Church; and if he was willing to rob the Church he knew that the
Duke of Milan and the Venetians would not consent, because Faenza
and Rimini were already under the protection of the Venetians. Besides
this, he saw the arms of Italy, especially those by which he might
have been assisted, in hands that would fear the aggrandizement of the
Pope, namely, the Orsini and the Colonna and their following. It
behoved him, therefore, to upset this state of affairs and embroil the
powers, so as to make himself securely master of part of their states.
This was easy for him to do, because he found the Venetians, moved
by other reasons, inclined to bring back the French into Italy; he
would not only not oppose this, but he would render it more easy by
dissolving the former marriage of King Louis. Therefore the king
came into Italy with the assistance of the Venetians and the consent
of Alexander. He was no sooner in Milan than the Pope had soldiers
from him for the attempt on the Romagna, which yielded to him on the
reputation of the king. The duke, therefore, having acquired the
Romagna and beaten the Colonna, while wishing to hold that and to
advance further, was hindered by two things: the one, his forces did
not appear loyal to him, the other, the goodwill of France: that is to
say, he feared that the forces of the Orsini, which was using, would
not stand to him, that not only might they hinder him from winning
more, but might themselves seize what he had won, and that the King
might also do the same. Of the Orsini he had a warning when, after
taking Faenza and attacking Bologna, he saw them go very unwillingly
to that attack. And as to the king, he learned his mind when he
himself, after taking the duchy of Urbino, attacked Tuscany, and the
king made him desist from that undertaking; hence the duke decided
to depend no more upon the arms and the luck of others.

For the first thing he weakened the Orsini and Colonna parties in
Rome, by gaining to himself all their adherents who were gentlemen,
making them his gentlemen, giving them good pay, and, according to
their rank, honouring them with office and command in such a way
that in a few months all attachment to the factions was destroyed
and turned entirely to the duke. After this he awaited an
opportunity to crush the Orsini, having scattered the adherents of the
Colonna. This came to him soon and he used it well; for the Orsini,
perceiving at length that the aggrandizement of the duke and the
Church was ruin to them, called a meeting at Magione, in the territory
of Perugia. From this sprung the rebellion at Urbino and the tumults
in the Romagna, with endless dangers to the duke, all of which he
overcame with the help of the French. Having restored his authority,
not to leave it at risk by trusting either to the French or other
outside forces, he had recourse to his wiles, and he knew so well
how to conceal his mind that, by the mediation of Signor Paolo
[Orsini]- whom the duke did not fail to secure with all kinds of
attention, giving him money, apparel, and horses- the Orsini were
reconciled, so that their simplicity brought them into his power at
Sinigaglia. Having exterminated the leaders, and turned their
partisans into his friends, the duke had laid sufficiently good
foundations to his power, having all the Romagna and the duchy of
Urbino; and the people now beginning to appreciate their prosperity,
he gained them all over to himself. And as this point is worthy of
notice, and to be imitated by others, I am not willing to leave it
out.

When the duke occupied the Romagna he found it under the rule of
weak masters, who rather plundered their subjects than ruled them, and
gave them more cause for disunion than for union, so that the
country was full of robbery, quarrels, and every kind of violence; and
so, wishing to bring back peace and obedience to authority, he
considered it necessary to give it a good governor. Thereupon he
promoted Messer Ramiro d'Orco [de Lorqua], a swift and cruel man, to
whom he gave the fullest power. This man in a short time restored
peace and unity with the greatest success. Afterwards the duke
considered that it was not advisable to confer such excessive
authority, for he had no doubt but that he would become odious, so
he set up a court of judgment in the country, under a most excellent
president, wherein all cities had their advocates. And because he knew
that the past severity had caused some hatred against himself, so,
to clear himself in the minds of the people, and gain them entirely to
himself, he desired to show that, if any cruelty had been practised,
it had not originated with him, but in the natural sternness of the
minister. Under this pretence he took Ramiro, and one morning caused
him to be executed and left on the piazza at Cesena with the block and
a bloody knife at his side. The barbarity of this spectacle caused the
people to be at once satisfied and dismayed.

But let us return whence we started. I say that the duke, finding
himself now sufficiently powerful and partly secured from immediate
dangers by having armed himself in his own way, and having in a
great measure crushed those forces in his vicinity that could injure
him if he wished to proceed with his conquest, had next to consider
France, for he knew that the king, who too late was aware of his
mistake, would not support him. And from this time he began to seek
new alliances and to temporize with France in the expedition which she
was making towards the kingdom of Naples against the Spaniards who
were besieging Gaeta. It was his intention to secure himself against
them, and this he would have quickly accomplished had Alexander lived.

Such was his line of action as to present affairs. But as to the
future he had to fear, in the first place, that a new successor to the
Church might not be friendly to him and might seek to take from him
that which Alexander had given him, so he decided to act in four ways.
Firstly, by exterminating the families of those lords whom he had
despoiled, so as to take away that pretext from the Pope. Secondly, by
winning to himself all the gentlemen of Rome, so as to be able to curb
the Pope with their aid, as has been observed. Thirdly, by
converting the college more to himself. Fourthly, by acquiring so much
power before the Pope should die that he could by his own measures
resist the first shock. Of these four things, at the death of
Alexander, he had accomplished three. For he had killed as many of the
dispossessed lords as he could lay hands on, and few had escaped; he
had won over the Roman gentlemen, and he had the most numerous party
in the college. And as to any fresh acquisition, he intended to become
master of Tuscany, for he already possessed Perugia and Piombino,
and Pisa was under his protection. And as he had no longer to study
France (for the French were already driven out of the kingdom of
Naples by the Spaniards, and in this way both were compelled to buy
his goodwill), he pounced down upon Pisa. After this, Lucca and
Siena yielded at once, partly through hatred and partly through fear
of the Florentines; and the Florentines would have had no remedy had
he continued to prosper, as he was prospering the year that
Alexander died, for he had acquired so much power and reputation
that he would have stood by himself, and no longer have depended on
the luck and the forces of others, but solely on his own power and
ability.

But Alexander died five years after he had first drawn the sword. He
left the duke with the state of Romagna alone consolidated, with the
rest in the air, between two most powerful hostile armies, and sick
unto death. Yet there were in the duke such boldness and ability,
and he knew so well how men are to be won or lost, and so firm were
the foundations which in so short a time he had laid, that if he had
not had those armies on his back, or if he had been in good health, he
would have overcome all difficulties. And it is seen that his
foundations were good, for the Romagna awaited him for more than a
month. In Rome, although but half alive, he remained secure; and
whilst the Baglioni, the Vitelli, and the Orsini might come to Rome,
they could not effect anything against him. If he could not have
made Pope him whom he wished, at least the one whom he did not wish
would not have been elected. But if he had been in sound health at the
death of Alexander, everything would have been easy to him. On the day
that Julius II was elected, he told me that he had thought of
everything that might occur at the death of his father, and had
provided a remedy for all, except that he had never anticipated
that, when the death did happen, he himself would be on the point to
die.

When all the actions of the duke are recalled, I do not know how
to blame him, but rather it appears to me, as I have said, that I
ought to offer him for imitation to all those who, by the fortune or
the arms of others, are raised to government. Because he, having a
lofty spirit and far-reaching aims, could not have regulated his
conduct otherwise, and only the shortness of the life of Alexander and
his own sickness frustrated his designs. Therefore, he who considers
it necessary to secure himself in his new principality, to win
friends, to overcome either by force or fraud, to make himself beloved
and feared by the people, to be followed and revered by the
soldiers, to exterminate those who have power or reason to hurt him,
to change the old order of things for new, to be severe and
gracious, magnanimous and liberal, to destroy a disloyal soldiery
and to create new, to maintain friendship with kings and princes in
such a way that they must help him with zeal and offend with
caution, cannot find a more lively example than the actions of this
man.

Only can he be blamed for the election of Julius II, in whom he made
a bad choice, because, as is said, not being able to elect a Pope to
his own mind, he could have hindered any other from being elected
Pope; and he ought never to have consented to the election of any
cardinal whom he had injured or who had cause to fear him if they
became pontiffs. For men injure either from fear or hatred. Those whom
he had injured, amongst others, were San Pietro ad Vincula, Colonna,
San Giorgio, and Ascanio.* Any one of the others, on becoming Pope,
would have had to fear him, Rouen and the Spaniards excepted; the
latter from their relationship and obligations, the former from his
influence, the kingdom of France having relations with him. Therefore,
above everything, the duke ought to have created a Spaniard Pope, and,
failing him, he ought to have consented to Rouen and not San Pietro ad
Vincula. He who believes that new benefits will cause great personages
to forget old injuries is deceived. Therefore, the duke erred in his
choice, and it was the cause of his ultimate ruin.

* Julius II had been Cardinal of San Pietro ad Vincula; San
Giorgio was Raffaells Riaxis, and Ascanio was Cardinal Ascanio Sforza.


