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. [1] 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.
1. Julius II had been Cardinal of San Pietro ad Vincula; San Giorgio was
Raffaells Riaxis, and Ascanio was Cardinal Ascanio Sforza.