The essential writings of Machiavelli (3 page)

CHAPTER ONE
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F THE KINDS OF PRINCIPALITIES THAT EXIST, AND HOW THEY CAN BE ACQUIRED

All states, all dominions that rule or have ruled over men, are or have been either republics or principalities. Principalities are either hereditary, with a long-established bloodline, or new. And the new principalities are either entirely new, as Milan was to Francesco Sforza,
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or are like limbs added to the hereditary state of the prince who acquires them, as the Kingdom of Naples was to the King of Spain.
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States obtained in this way are accustomed either to living under a prince, or to being free. They are acquired either with the arms of others, or with one’s own, either by chance or by skill.

2.
Francesco Sforza (1401–66) was a soldier of fortune who became Duke of Milan in 1450.

3.
Ferdinand the Catholic (1452–1516), King of Aragon, also became Ferdinand III of Naples in 1504.

CHAPTER TWO
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F HEREDITARY PRINCIPALITIES

I will not discuss republics, as I have already done so at some length elsewhere. I shall only concentrate on principalities, and shall weave together the threads I have already laid out. I will show how these principalities can be governed and maintained.

First, states that are hereditary and tied to the bloodline of their prince are easier to maintain than new ones. It is enough not to diverge from the practices of one’s forebears, and to handle unforeseen issues as they arise. If such a prince is of at least average ability he can retain his position of power, so long as no extraordinary or excessive force deprive him of it. If this prince is deprived of his state, he will find he can reacquire it if any misfortune befalls the usurper.

In Italy we have the example of the Duke of Ferrara, who resisted the assaults of the Venetians in 1484 and of Pope Julius II in 1510, for the simple reason that he had inherited an ancient principality
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A hereditary prince has less cause to mistreat his subjects, and so is more loved by them. If unusual vices do not make him hated, it is to be expected that he will be loved by his people.

The long continuum of the dominion obliterates the memories and issues that make men yearn for innovation, for one change will inevitably forge a link to another.

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In fact, Duke Ercole d’Este of Ferrara managed to end the war with Venetians in 1484, while his son Duke Alfonso managed to stay in power despite excommunication and an ongoing war with the papal forces.

CHAPTER THREE
O
F MIXED PRINCIPALITIES

It is in the new principality that the difficulties lie. First, if the principality is not completely new, but is like a limb or extension added to another principality (in which case we could almost call the whole state a mixed principality), its volatility stems mainly from a difficulty inherent in all new principalities. This is that men will willingly change their ruler in the hope that they will fare better, a hope that leads them to take up arms against their old ruler. But in this they are deceived, because, as they invariably discover, their lot under a new ruler is inevitably worse. This is the result of another natural and basic inevitability: that you cannot avoid offending those whose new ruler you are, both with your armed soldiers and with innumerable other provocations that come in the wake of a conquest. You end up making enemies of all those you have offended during your conquest of the principality, and you find that you cannot keep the friendship of those who helped you to power, since you cannot satisfy them in the way they had envisioned. Furthermore, you cannot take strong measures against them, as you are indebted to them. Even with the most powerful army, if you want to invade a state, you need the support of the people. It was for these reasons that King Louis XII of France was quick to occupy Milan, and just as quick to lose it. Duke Ludovico’s own forces were enough to win Milan back the first time, because the same masses that had opened the gates for Louis, finding themselves misled in their hopes for a better future, could not endure the new prince’s offenses.
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It is a fact that once a prince acquires a rebellious state for the second time, it also proves harder to lose that state a second time.
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This is because the prince who seizes the opportunity of the rebellion has fewer scruples about securing his position by punishing offenders, flushing out suspects, and strengthening all the places where he is weakest. In this sense, it was enough for a Duke Ludovico to make a little noise along the borders for Louis XII to lose Milan the first time. But for him to lose Milan a second time the whole world had to unite against him, defeat his army, and chase it out of Italy
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This followed from the causes I have already laid out. Nonetheless, both the first and second time, Milan was taken from him.

The general reasons for the first loss have been discussed. It now remains to discuss the second, and to see what recourse someone in Louis’s position could have taken to maintain himself more securely in his new acquisition. I must stress that the states a prince acquires and adds to his own are either of the same country and language, or are not. If they are it is much easier to retain them, particularly if they are not used to freedom. To hold them securely, it is enough to extinguish the line of the previous prince who ruled them. As for the rest, if the new acquisition’s former state of affairs is kept and there is no difference in customs, men will live quite peacefully, as we have seen in Burgundy, Brittany, Gascony, and Normandy, which for a long time now have all belonged to France. Although there is some difference in language, their customs are similar, and their people get along with one another quite easily. He who acquires such states and wishes to retain them has to make sure of two things: that the bloodline of their former princes is extinguished, and that their laws and taxes remain the same. This way, the prince’s new state merges with the old, quickly becoming a single body.

But difficulties arise when you acquire states in a land with differing languages, customs, and laws. To keep these states, you need good fortune and much diligence. One of the best and quickest solutions is for the new prince to go and live in his new state. This makes the possession more durable and secure. The Turk did this in Greece.
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With all the other measures he took to keep Greece in his possession, had he not gone to live there he would not have succeeded, because once the prince is established within his new state he is able to see problems as they arise and can remedy them. If he is not there, problems become obvious only once they are dire and can no longer be remedied. Furthermore, if he is present, his new state will not be looted by his officials, and his new subjects can enjoy immediate access to their prince. This will give them more reason to love him if they are on his side, and to fear him if they are not, and foreign powers wishing to attack his state will respect him more. Hence, if the prince lives in his new state, it is difficult for him to lose it.

Another efficient remedy is to set up colonies in one or two places that will act as the shackles of your new state. If you do not set up colonies, you will have to send a great number of troops to secure it, while a colony can be established and maintained at negligible cost. The only subjects who will be affronted are those whose fields and houses will be confiscated to be given to the new colonists. But these dispossessed subjects make up only a small part of the state and will end up poor and dispersed, and so can do no harm. The rest of your new subjects will not be affronted (and hence will be acquiescent), but will also be frightened of transgressing, worried that they too might be dispossessed. I conclude that colonies do not cost much, are loyal, and will cause less trouble. And as I have already mentioned, those you dispossess cannot harm you, as they will be poor and dispersed. In short, men must either be flattered or eliminated, because a man will readily avenge a slight grievance, but not one that is truly severe. Hence, the offense done a man must be of the kind that cannot incur vengeance.

If you choose armed forces instead of colonies, you will spend more and will have to squander all the income from the new state in order to pay the army. This will turn the acquisition into a loss, and all your new subjects will end up offended, since an army, constantly on the move and constantly requartered, hurts the whole state. Everyone feels the pain, and everyone becomes your enemy. And these are enemies who can harm you, because though they have been defeated, they remain on their own ground. So in every sense, using armed forces is as useless as setting up colonies is useful.

It is also important when a prince has conquered a foreign state that he become the protector of the surrounding weaker powers, and do all he can to weaken the stronger ones. He must take precautions so that no foreigner equal in power manages to enter his new state. If he should enter, it will be because he was brought in by discontented factions driven by ambition or fear. We saw this in the case of the Aetolians who introduced the Romans into Greece;
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and in every other province in which the Romans set foot, it was with the help of some of the inhabitants. The order of things is that the moment a powerful invader takes over a state, all the weaker factions within it join forces with him, spurred on by their envy of the ruler who had wielded power over them before. In other words, the new prince has no trouble winning the weaker factions over, because they will willingly become part of his new state. He has only to see to it that they do not gain too much power and authority. With his forces and their favor, he can easily bring down those who are powerful so that he will remain the only arbiter in the land. He who does not follow this course will quickly lose all he has gained, and will be plagued by infinite difficulties while he holds power.

The Romans were careful to follow these principles in the provinces they conquered, establishing colonies, supporting the less powerful without increasing their strength, undercutting the strong, and not letting powerful foreigners gain standing there. Greece serves as a perfect example. The Romans supported the Achaeans and the Aetolians, weakened the Kingdom of Macedonia, and chased out Antiochus.
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Yet despite the help that the Achaeans and the Aetolians provided, the Romans did not permit them to expand their territories. Nor did Philip’s subtle persuasions induce the Romans to become his friends without undercutting him. And all of Antiochus’s power still did not persuade the Romans to consent to his ruling over any state within their territories. The Romans did what every wise prince must do: They kept their eyes trained not only on present problems but also future ones, which must be anticipated with great care, because when one sees these problems approaching they can still be remedied, whereas if one waits for them to arrive it will be too late to administer medicine. The illness will have become incurable. As physicians say of consumption: In the first stages it is easy to cure though hard to detect, but with the progress of time, if not detected or treated, consumption becomes easy to detect but hard to cure. This can also be said of the affairs of state. If one recognizes evolving ills in advance (for which one must be farsighted), one can cure them quickly. But if they are left to develop until they are plain for all to see, it will be too late for remedies.

The Romans recognized potential difficulties in advance and always remedied them in time. They never let problems develop just so they could escape a war, for they knew that such wars cannot be avoided, only postponed to the advantage of others. Consequently, the Romans chose to wage war on Philip and Antiochus in Greece so that they would not have to do so in Italy, even though they could have avoided war with either of them for a while. But they chose not to. The Romans never liked the dictum we constantly hear from the wise men of our day, that time will take care of things. The Romans preferred to take care of things by means of their own skill and prudence, because time will sweep everything before it and can bring good things as well as bad, bad things as well as good.

But let us return to France, and see if her king did any of the things we have discussed. I shall speak of Louis XII, not of Charles, as Louis held his acquisitions in Italy for a longer period, which gives us the opportunity to evaluate his progress with greater clarity. We will see how he did the exact opposite of what one must do to maintain a foreign state one has acquired.

Louis XII managed to enter Italy through the ambition of the Venetians, who wanted to acquire half the state of Lombardy by his coming. I do not wish to censure the king’s course of action: He wanted to gain a footing in Italy, and did not have any friends there. In fact, as all doors were shut to him on account of King Charles’s actions,
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Louis XII had to make friends wherever he could, and he would have succeeded in this course had he not made a number of mistakes elsewhere. Once he had acquired Lombardy, King Louis quickly regained the reputation that Charles had cost him. Genoa yielded, and the Florentines rushed to become his friends, as did the Marquis of Mantua, the Duke of Ferrara, Bentivoglo, the Countess of Forlì, the Lords of Faenza, Pesaro, Rimini, Camerino, Piombino, and the men of Lucca, Pisa, and Siena. The Venetians quickly realized the rashness of the course they had chosen: In order to gain two holdings in Lombardy, they had helped King Louis gain dominion over two-thirds of Italy.

Let us consider how easily Louis could have maintained his reputation in Italy if he had observed the aforementioned rules. He could have remained secure had he stood by his friends, who, because they were many, weak, and afraid (some of the Church, some of the Venetians), would have been forced to remain at his side. With their help he could have kept in check those who remained powerful. But no sooner did he set foot in Milan than he did the exact opposite, helping Pope Alexander to occupy the province of the Romagna. What Louis did not realize was that with this move he weakened himself, alienating his allies and those who would readily have rushed into his arms, and strengthened the Church, adding to its spiritual power, which gives it such authority, a prodigious amount of temporal power.

Having made this initial mistake, Louis was forced to continue making mistakes, so that in the end, in order to curb Pope Alexander’s ambitions and stop him from becoming the ruler of Tuscany, he was forced to invade Italy. It was not enough that Louis strengthened the Church and pushed away his friends, but because he coveted the Kingdom of Naples, he decided to share it with the King of Spain. The result was that, whereas he had been the only authority in Italy, he now introduced a powerful companion to whom ambitious and dissatisfied men could turn. Instead of leaving a king in Naples who would be a puppet, he drove him out and brought in a king who was powerful enough to drive Louis out.
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The wish to acquire is a most natural thing, and men who manage to acquire are always applauded (or at least not blamed) when they succeed. What is an error and worthy of blame is when a man cannot acquire something, but desires to obtain it in any way he can. If Louis, for instance, could have conquered Naples with his own forces, he should have done so. If he could not, he should have desisted, and not opted for sharing Naples with another power. It is excusable that he shared Lombardy with the Venetians, because that was how he managed to secure a foothold in Italy, but that he shared Naples merits blame, because it cannot be excused by any such necessity.

In other words, Louis XII made the following five mistakes: He destroyed the smaller powers; he helped a single power in Italy to gain strength;
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he brought a powerful foreigner into Italy;
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he did not go to live there; and he did not establish colonies. These errors would not have redounded on him in his lifetime had he not committed a sixth error by depriving the Venetians of their state. Had he not strengthened the Church or brought Spain into Italy, undercutting the Venetians would have been necessary in order to weaken them. But having made the first moves, Louis should never have consented to Venice’s ruin. A strong Venice would have kept the others out of Lombardy, either because Venice would not have allowed anyone but itself to become Lombardy’s ruler, or because the others would not have wanted to take Lombardy from France simply in order to hand it over to Venice. Furthermore, they would not have had the spirit to fight both France and Venice. Were someone to argue that King Louis ceded the Romagna to Pope Alexander and the Kingdom of Naples to Spain in order to avoid war, I would respond with the point I have already made: You must never allow disorder to develop in an attempt to avoid war, as this way you are not escaping war, but simply postponing it to your own disadvantage. And if others were to allege that Louis had pledged his support in the pope’s campaign in gratitude for the Church’s annulment of his marriage and the hat of Rouen,
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I will counter that with some later points concerning the pledges of princes and how they should be regarded.