The essential writings of Machiavelli (5 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN
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F NEW PRINCIPALITIES ACQUIRED BY THE ARMS AND BY THE GOOD FORTUNE OF OTHERS

Private citizens who become princes by good fortune alone do so with little effort, but maintaining their position requires a great deal of effort. They have no difficulty in getting there, because their way is easy; the difficulties arise once they arrive. These are rulers who acquire a principality through money or by favor of a grantor. This was the case with many rulers in the cities of Ionia and the Hellespont in Greece, where Darius, in order to ensure his security and glory, created princes who would hold these lands.
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There were also private citizens who became rulers by bribing soldiers. Such men depend on the will and good fortune of whoever has granted them their rule, two factors that are extremely unreliable. In general, a ruler of this kind is neither capable of maintaining nor successful in maintaining his position. He is not capable, because unless he is a man of the greatest intelligence and skill, he cannot be expected, as a mere former private citizen, to know how to command; and he is not able to maintain his position because he does not have loyal forces that will support him. Furthermore, states that spring up suddenly, like all things in nature that sprout and grow quickly, cannot develop the necessary roots and connections, and hence they expire with the first bad weather. As I have mentioned, the only exceptions are princes who, though they have become princes suddenly, have so much skill that they instantly know how to use and conserve what Fortune has dropped in their laps. Once they have their principality, they are quick to lay the foundations that others have had to lay before becoming princes.

I would like to illustrate with two examples from our recent history the two ways—by skill or by Fortune—of becoming prince: those of Francesco Sforza and Cesare Borgia. Sforza, through well-chosen means and great skill, began as a private citizen and became the Duke of Milan. What he gained with a thousand toils, he maintained with little effort. On the other hand, Cesare Borgia, called Duke Valentino by the people, acquired his state through his father’s good fortune, and through his father’s subsequent bad fortune lost it; this though Borgia used every means in his power and did all that a prudent and skillful man must do in order to establish himself in those states which the arms and good fortune of another have granted him. Because, as I have already stated, he who does not lay foundations first, must do so with prodigious skill later, even if this entails hardship for the architect and danger to the edifice. If one considers the system that Cesare Borgia applied, it is clear that he had laid strong foundations for his future power. In my view he is an important example, as I know not what better precept to give a new prince. If in the end Borgia did not prevail, it was not his fault, but the result of the extreme malignity of Fortune.

Pope Alexander VI wanted to make his son Cesare Borgia great, but he encountered many difficulties. He could not find a way of making him prince of a state that did not belong to the Church, and he knew that if he attempted to give his son a state that did belong to the Church, the Duke of Milan and the Venetians would intervene; Faenza and Rimini already stood under the protection of Venice. Furthermore, the Italian mercenary armies, particularly those the pope would most need, were in the hands of rulers who had reason to fear his growing power. He could not trust them, as they all belonged to the Orsini and Colonna clans and their allies. He had to disrupt the existing order and create turmoil in those rulers’ states in order to gain control of part of them. This proved easy enough, because he found that the Venetians, for their own motives, intended to bring the French back into Italy. Not only did the pope not oppose this, but he facilitated it by obliging King Louis with an annulment of his former marriage. So Louis entered Italy with the help of the Venetians and the blessing of the pope, and no sooner had Louis set foot in Milan than he supplied the pope with men for the latter’s campaign in the Romagna, which the pope conquered unhindered as he had the support and backing of the king.
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So after Cesare Borgia had acquired the Romagna and defeated the Colonna family, he intended to maintain the Romagna and expand further. But Borgia faced two impediments: his army, which did not seem loyal, and the designs of France. He sensed that the army of the Orsini, which he had been using, could not be relied upon. He feared that it would not only interfere with his further conquests, but take from him what he had already acquired, and that the King of France would follow suit. Borgia was confirmed in this when, after the conquest of Faenza, he attacked Bologna and saw how halfheartedly the Orsini went into battle. King Louis’s intentions also became clear when Borgia attacked Tuscany after successfully taking the Duchy of Urbino, and Louis forced him to retreat. Consequently, Borgia decided to depend no longer on the army and goodwill of another. The first thing he did was to weaken the Orsini and Colonna factions in Rome by winning over all the noblemen who supported them, making them his own noblemen and granting them large stipends. He bestowed upon them, according to their rank, army commands and government positions. The result was that within a few months their affection for their former leaders was transferred to Borgia. He now waited for an opportunity to destroy the Orsini, having already dispersed the house of Colonna. An excellent opportunity presented itself, and he made excellent use of it. The Orsini had realized too late that the power of Borgia and the Church meant their ruin; they assembled at Magione, in Perugino, and fomented rebellions in Urbino and throughout the Romagna, which put Borgia in a very precarious position. He managed to overcome these dangers with the help of the French, but once he regained power, he did not trust France or any other outside force. So that he would not have to put their allegiance to him to the test, he turned to deception. He was such a master of dissimulation that the Orsini, through the mediation of Signor Paolo Orsini, were prepared to reach a reconciliation. Borgia showered Paolo Orsini with every courtesy in order to reassure him, giving him money, precious garments, and horses. Then Borgia set a trap for the Orsini at Sinigallia, and they foolishly walked right into it.
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By eliminating the leaders and turning their followers into his allies, Borgia laid a solid foundation for his power, having the whole of the Romagna and the Duchy of Urbino in his grip. What is more important, it was clear that he had gained the friendship of the Romagna and all its people, who had begun to experience the benefits of his rule.

I would also like to mention the following, because it is noteworthy and merits imitation: When Cesare Borgia took over the Romagna, he found it to have been ruled by weak princes who would sooner rob their subjects than govern them, causing dissension rather than unity. Robbery, intrigue, and every kind of evil had been rampant throughout the province, and Borgia found it essential to set up a strong government in order to pacify it and make it submit to his rule. He put in charge a resolute and ruthless man, Ramiro de Lorqua, giving him complete authority, and within the shortest time de Lorqua brought peace and unity to the Romagna, gaining much power and influence in the process. But Borgia judged that such excessive authority over the people could have dangerous consequences, as it might arouse their hatred, so he set up a civil court in the center of the province, with an excellent presiding judge, every city having its own advocate. Borgia was aware that de Lorqua’s rigor had created hatred among the people, and in order to purge their minds and win them over, he decided to make it clear that if there had been any cruelty it had been triggered by his minister’s abrasive nature. At the first opportunity, he had de Lorqua cut in two on the main square in Cesena, with a piece of wood and a bloody knife at his side. The brutality of this spectacle left the people both stunned and appeased.

But to return from our digression. Cesare Borgia now found himself powerful and to some extent secure, being well armed and having to a great extent destroyed neighboring armies that might have put him in harm’s way. If he wanted to continue expanding his acquisitions, he now had to take the King of France into account. For Borgia knew that Louis, who had realized his mistake too late, would not allow him to expand his territories. So Borgia began seeking new allies, and vacillating with France in its campaign against the Kingdom of Naples and the Spaniards who were besieging Gaeta.
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His intention was to secure himself against the French, which he could have done with ease had Pope Alexander lived. This was how Borgia handled the problems at hand. As for his future problems, his main fear was that the next pope might be ill disposed toward him and attempt to take away what Pope Alexander had given him.

Cesare Borgia set out to secure his position vis-à-vis the Church in four ways: First, to extinguish the bloodlines of the lords he had dispossessed, in order to take away a future pope’s opportunity of using them; second, to win over all the noblemen of Rome, in order to keep the pope in check; third, to gain as much influence as he could within the College of Cardinals; and fourth, to acquire as large an empire as possible before Pope Alexander died so that he could resist an initial attack from any enemy without assistance from others. Of these four schemes, he had accomplished only three by the time Pope Alexander died;
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the fourth he had almost achieved. He had killed as many of the lords he had dispossessed as he could get his hands on (only a few managed to escape), he won over the Roman noblemen, and he controlled the largest faction in the College of Cardinals. As for his further conquests, he already owned Perugia and Piombino, held Pisa under his protection, and had designs on Tuscany. As he no longer had to defer to France (the Spaniards had already robbed France of the Kingdom of Naples, with the result that both the French and the Spaniards were compelled to buy Borgia’s friendship), he would have conquered Pisa. After this, Lucca and Siena would have been quick to capitulate, partly out of fear and partly to spite the Florentines, and the Florentines could have done nothing about it. Had Borgia succeeded—and he was on the point of success the very year Pope Alexander died—he would have amassed so many forces and so much influence that he could have imposed his own will, depending on his own power and skill and not on the Fortune or arms of others.

But Pope Alexander died five years after Borgia had first drawn his sword, leaving him with nothing secured but the province of the Ro-magna (all the other possessions being up in the air). Borgia was now caught between two powerful enemy armies, and deathly ill. But he had great ferocity and skill, and was acutely aware of how men were to be won or lost. The foundations he had laid in such a short time were so sturdy that he could have stood firm against any difficulty, if [the French and Spanish] armies had not been bearing down on him and had he not been so very ill. The sturdiness of these foundations was clear, for his province waited more than a month for him. In Rome, although barely alive, he remained secure. And though the Ballioni, Vitelli, and Orsini came to Rome, they could not raise a following against him. Even if Borgia could not dictate the selection of the new pope, at least he managed to prevent a choice of which he did not approve. Had he not been ill when Pope Alexander died, he would have had no difficulty. Borgia himself told me on the day Pope Julius II was elected that he, Borgia, had carefully weighed everything that might happen after his father, Pope Alexander, died, and had found a solution for everything. There was only one thing he had not anticipated: the possibility that he himself might be at death’s door.

Having laid out all the actions Borgia took, I can find nothing to reproach him with. I would even say, as I already have, that he serves as an excellent example of a prince who rose to power through Fortune and by means of the arms of others. He had great courage and lofty aspirations, and could not have conducted himself in any other way. The only things that foiled his designs were the brevity of Pope Alexander’s life and his own illness. Hence, a prince wishing to secure himself against enemies in his new principality cannot find a more compelling example than Cesare Borgia of how to gain friends, how to win by force or deception, how to make the populace love and fear him, how to gain the loyalty and respect of his soldiers, the necessity of eliminating those who can or will harm him, and the importance of substituting new laws for old. Borgia was exemplary in both his severity and his kindness. He was magnanimous and liberal, eliminated disloyal troops and marshaled new ones, and cultivated friendships with kings and princes so that they had to either help him with favors or confront him with caution. Borgia’s only error was to allow Julius to become the next pope. This was a bad decision because, as I have already stated, even if he could not make the man he wanted pope, he could at least have prevented the accession of a pope he did not want. He should never have agreed to the papacy of any of the cardinals he had harmed, or who would have cause to fear him once they became pope, since men will attack you out of fear or hatred. Among the men Borgia had harmed were San Piero ad Vincula,
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Colonna, San Giorgio, and Ascanio. All the other claimants to the papacy would have had to fear him, except for Rouen and the Spaniards—Rouen because of his connection to the King of France, the Spaniards because of kinship and obligation. Therefore, Borgia’s first choice for pope should have been a Spaniard, and if not a Spaniard, then Rouen. But he should not have chosen San Piero ad Vincula. For whoever believes that great advancement and new benefits make men forget old injuries is mistaken. Hence Borgia made a bad decision. And it was this decision that ultimately brought about his ruin.