CHAPTER XI - CONCERNING ECCLESIASTICAL PRINCIPALITIES

IT ONLY remains now to speak of ecclesiastical principalities,
touching which all difficulties are prior to getting possession,
because they are acquired either by capacity or good fortune, and they
can be held without either; for they are sustained by the ordinances
of religion, which are so all-powerful, and of such a character that
the principalities may be held no matter how their princes behave
and live. These princes alone have states and do not defend them, they
have subjects and do not rule them; and the states, although
unguarded, are not taken from them, and the subjects, although not
ruled, do not care, and they have neither the desire nor the ability
to alienate themselves. Such principalities only are secure and happy.
But being upheld by powers, to which the human mind cannot reach, I
shall speak no more of them, because, being exalted and maintained
by God, it would be the act of a presumptuous and rash man to
discuss them.

Nevertheless, if any one should ask of me how comes it that the
Church has attained such greatness in temporal power, seeing that from
Alexander backwards the Italian potentates (not only those who have
been called potentates, but every baron and lord, though the smallest)
have valued the temporal power very slightly- yet now a king of France
trembles before it, and it has been able to drive him from Italy,
and to ruin the Venetians- although this may be very manifest, it does
not appear to me superfluous to recall it in some measure to memory.

Before Charles, King of France, passed into Italy, this country
was under the dominion of the Pope, the Venetians, the King of Naples,
the Duke of Milan, and the Florentines. These potentates had two
principal anxieties: the one, that no foreigner should enter Italy
under arms; the other, that none of themselves should seize more
territory. Those about whom there was the most anxiety were the Pope
and the Venetians. To restrain the Venetians the union of all the
others was necessary, as it was for the defence of Ferrara; and to
keep down the Pope they made use of the barons of Rome, who, being
divided into two factions, Orsini and Colonna, had always a pretext
for disorder, and, standing with arms in their hands under the eyes of
the Pontiff, kept the pontificate weak and powerless. And although
there might arise sometimes a courageous pope, such as Sixtus [IV],
yet neither fortune nor wisdom could rid him of these annoyances.
And the short life of a pope is also a cause of weakness; for in the
ten years, which is the average life of a pope, he can with difficulty
lower one of the factions; and if, so to speak, one pope should almost
destroy the Colonna, another would arise hostile to the Orsini, who
would support their opponents, and yet would not have time to ruin the
Orsini. This was the reason why the temporal powers of the pope were
little esteemed in Italy.

Alexander VI arose afterwards, who of all the pontiffs that have
ever been showed how a pope with both money and arms was able to
prevail; and through the instrumentality of the Duke Valentino, and by
reason of the entry of the French, he brought about all those things
which I have discussed above in the actions of the duke. And
although his intention was not to aggrandize the Church, but the duke,
nevertheless, what he did contributed to the greatness of the
Church, which, after his death and the ruin of the duke, became the
heir to all his labours.

Pope Julius came afterwards and found the Church strong,
possessing all the Romagna, the barons of Rome reduced to impotence,
and, through the chastisements Alexander, the factions wiped out; he
also found the way open to accumulate money in a manner such as had
never been practised before Alexander's time. Such things Julius not
only followed, but improved upon, and he intended to gain Bologna,
to ruin the Venetians, and to drive the French out of Italy. All of
these enterprises prospered with him, and so much the more to his
credit, inasmuch as he did everything to strengthen the Church and not
any private person. He kept also the Orsini and Colonna factions
within the bounds in which he found them; and although there was among
them some mind to make disturbance, nevertheless he held two things
firm: the one, the greatness of the church, with which he terrified
them; and the other, not allowing them to have their own cardinals,
who caused the disorders among them. For whenever these factions
have their cardinals they do not remain quiet for long, because
cardinals foster the factions in Rome and out of it, and the barons
are compelled to support them, and thus from the ambitions of prelates
arise disorders and tumults among the barons. For these reasons his
Holiness Pope Leo found the pontificate most powerful, and it is to be
hoped that, if others made it great in arms, he will make it still
greater and more venerated by his goodness and infinite other virtues.

