THE PRINCE
by Nicolo Machiavelli
Translated by W. K. Marriott
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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. (Note
1)
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. (Note
2)
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. (Note
3)
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. (Note
4)
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. (Note
5)
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. (Note
6).
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. (Note
7)
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. (Note
8).
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. (Note
9)
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. (Note
10)
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. (Note
11)
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