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the things mentioned. I will speak of Louis [XII] (and not of
Charles [VIII]) as the one whose conduct is the better to be observed,
he having held possession of Italy for the longest period; and you
will see that he has done the opposite to those things which ought
to be done to retain a state composed of divers elements.
  King Louis was brought into Italy by the ambition of the
Venetians, who desired to obtain half the state of Lombardy by his
intervention. I will not blame the course taken by the king,
because, wishing to get a foothold in Italy, and having no friends
there- seeing rather that every door was shut to him owing to the
conduct of Charles- he was forced to accept those friendships which he
could get, and he would have succeeded very quickly in his design if
in other matters he had not made some mistakes. The king, however,
having acquired Lombardy, regained at once the authority which Charles
had lost: Genoa yielded; the Florentines became his friends; the
Marquess of Mantua, the Duke of Ferrara, the Bentivoglio, my lady of
Forli, the Lords of Faenza, of Pesaro, of Rimini, of Camerino, of
Piombino, the Lucchesi, the Pisans, the Sienese- everybody made
advances to him to become his friend. Then could the Venetians realize
the rashness of the course taken by them, which, in order that they
might secure two towns in Lombardy, had made the king master of
two-thirds of Italy.
  Let any one now consider with what little difficulty the king
could have maintained his position in Italy had he observed the
rules above laid down, and kept all his friends secure and
protected; for although they were numerous they were both weak and
timid, some afraid of the Church, some of the Venetians, and thus they
would always have been forced to stand in with him, and by their means
he could easily have made himself secure against those who remained
powerful. But he was no sooner in Milan than he did the contrary by
assisting Pope Alexander to occupy the Romagna. It never occurred to
him that by this action he was weakening himself, depriving himself of
friends and those who had thrown themselves into his lap, whilst he
aggrandized the Church by adding much temporal power to the spiritual,
thus giving it great authority. And having committed this prime error,
he was obliged to follow it up, so much so that, to put an end to
the ambition of Alexander, and to prevent his becoming the master of
Tuscany, he was himself forced to come into Italy.
  And as if it were not enough to have aggrandized the Church, and
deprived himself friends, he, wishing to have the kingdom of Naples,
divides it with the King of Spain, and where he was the prime
arbiter of Italy he takes an associate, so that the ambitious of
that country and the malcontents of his own should have where to
shelter; and whereas he could have left in the kingdom his own
pensioner as king, he drove him out, to put one there who was able
to drive him, Louis, out in turn.
  The wish to acquire is in truth very natural and common, and men
always do so when they can, and for this they will be praised not
blamed; but when they cannot do so, yet wish to do so by any means,
then there is folly and blame. Therefore, if France could have
attacked Naples with her own forces she ought to have done so; if
she could not, then she ought not to have divided it. And if the
partition which she made with the Venetians in Lombardy was
justified by the excuse that by it she got a foothold in Italy, this
other partition merited blame, for it had not the excuse of that
necessity.
  Therefore Louis made these five errors: he destroyed the minor
powers, he increased the strength of one of the greater powers in
Italy, he brought in a foreign power, he did not settle in the
country, he did not send colonies. Which errors, if he had lived, were
not enough to injure him had he not made a sixth by taking away
their dominions from the Venetians; because, had he not aggrandized
the Church, nor brought Spain into Italy, it would have been very
reasonable and necessary to humble them; but having first taken
these steps, he ought never to have consented to their ruin, for they,
being powerful, would always have kept off others from designs on
Lombardy, to which the Venetians would never have consented except
to become masters themselves there; also because the others would
not wish to take Lombardy from France in order to give it to the
Venetians, and to run counter to both they would not have had the
courage.
  And if any one should say: King Louis yielded the Romagna to
Alexander and the kingdom to Spain to avoid war, I answer for the
reasons given above that a blunder ought never be perpetrated to avoid
war, because it is not to be avoided, but is only deferred to your
disadvantage. And if another should allege the pledge which the king
had given to the Pope that he would assist him in the enterprise, in
exchange for the dissolution of his marriage and for the hat to Rouen,
to that I reply what I shall write later on concerning the faith of
princes, and how it ought to be kept.
  Thus King Louis lost Lombardy by not having followed any of the
conditions observed by those who have taken possession of countries
and wished to retain them. Nor is there any miracle in this, but
much that is reasonable and quite natural. And on these matters I
spoke at Nantes with Rouen, when Valentino,* as Cesare Borgia, the son
of Pope Alexander, was usually called, occupied the Romagna, and on
Cardinal Rouen observing to me that the Italians did not understand
war, I replied to him that the French did not understand statecraft,
meaning that otherwise they would not have allowed the Church to reach
such greatness. And in fact it has been seen that the greatness of the
Church and of Spain in Italy has been caused by France, and her ruin
may be attributed to them. From this a general rule is drawn which
never or rarely fails: that he who is the cause of another becoming
powerful is ruined; because that predominancy has been brought about
either by astuteness or else by force, and both are distrusted by
him who has been raised to power.

  * So called- in Italian- from the duchy of Valentinois, conferred on
him by Louis XII.
                              CHAPTER IV
          WHY THE KINGDOM OF DARIUS, CONQUERED BY ALEXANDER,
    DID NOT REBEL AGAINST THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER AT HIS DEATH

  CONSIDERING the difficulties which men have had to hold a newly
acquired state, some might wonder how, seeing that Alexander the Great
became the master of Asia in a few years, and died whilst it was yet
scarcely settled (whence it might appear reasonable that the whole
empire would have rebelled), nevertheless his successors maintained
themselves, and had to meet no other difficulty than that which
arose among themselves from their own ambitions.
  I answer that the principalities of which one has record are found
to be governed in two different ways: either by a prince, with a
body of servants, who assist him to govern the kingdom as ministers by
his favour and permission; or by a prince and barons, who hold that
dignity by antiquity of blood and not by the grace of the prince. Such
barons have states and their own subjects, who recognize them as lords
and hold them in natural affection. Those states that are governed
by a prince and his servants hold their prince in more
consideration, because in all the country there is no one who is
recognized as superior to him, and if they yield obedience to
another they do it as to a minister and official, and they do not bear
him any particular affection.
  The examples of these two governments in our time are the Turk and
the King of France. The entire monarchy of the Turk is governed by one
lord, the others are his servants; and, dividing his kingdom into
sanjaks, he sends there different administrators, and shifts and
changes them as he chooses. But the King of France is placed in the
midst of an ancient body of lords, acknowledged by their own subjects,
and beloved by them; they have their own prerogatives, nor can the
king take these away except at his peril. Therefore, he who
considers both of these states will recognize great difficulties in
seizing the state of the Turk, but, once it is conquered, great ease
in holding it. The causes of the difficulties in seizing the kingdom
of the Turk are that the usurper cannot be called in by the princes of
the kingdom, nor can he hope to be assisted in his designs by the
revolt of those whom the lord has around him. This arises from the
reasons given above; for his ministers, being all slaves and
bondmen, can only be corrupted with great difficulty, and one can
expect little advantage from them when they have been corrupted, as
they cannot carry the people with them, for the reasons assigned.
Hence, he who attacks the Turk must bear in mind that he will find him
united, and he will have to rely more on his own strength than on
the revolt of others; but, if once the Turk has been conquered, and
routed in the field in such a way that he cannot replace his armies,
there is nothing to fear but the family of the prince, and, this being
exterminated, there remains no one to fear, the others having no
credit with the people; and as the conqueror did not rely on them
before his victory, so he ought not to fear them after it.
  The contrary happens in kingdoms governed like that of France,
because one can easily enter there by gaining over some baron of the
kingdom, for one always finds malcontents and such as desire a change.
Such men, for the reasons given, can open the way into the state and
render the victory easy; but if you wish to hold it afterwards, you
meet with infinite difficulties, both from those who have assisted you
and from those you have crushed. Nor is it enough for you to have
exterminated the family of the prince, because the lords that remain
make themselves the heads of fresh movements against you, and as you
are unable either to satisfy or exterminate them, that state is lost
whenever time brings the opportunity.
  Now if you will consider what was the nature of the government of
Darius, you will find it similar to the kingdom of the Turk, and
therefore it was only necessary for Alexander, first to overthrow
him in the field, and then to take the country from him. After which
victory, Darius being killed, the state remained secure to
Alexander, for the above reasons. And if his successors had been
united they would have enjoyed it securely and at their ease, for
there were no tumults raised in the kingdom except those they provoked
themselves.
  But it is impossible to hold with such tranquillity states
constituted like that of France. Hence arose those frequent rebellions
against the Romans in Spain, France, and Greece, owing to the many
principalities there were in these states, of which, as long as the
memory of them endured, the Romans always held an insecure possession;
but with the power and long continuance of the empire the memory of
them passed away, and the Romans then became secure possessors. And
when fighting afterwards amongst themselves, each one was able to
attach to himself his own parts of the country, according to the
authority he had assumed there; and the family of the former lord
being exterminated, none other than the Romans were acknowledged.
  When these things are remembered no one will marvel at the ease with
which Alexander held the Empire of Asia, or at the difficulties
which others have had to keep an acquisition, such as Pyrrhus and many
more; this is not occasioned by the little or abundance of ability
in the conqueror, but by the want of uniformity in the subject state.
                              CHAPTER V
     CONCERNING THE WAY TO GOVERN CITIES OR PRINCIPALITIES WHICH
         LIVED UNDER THEIR OWN LAWS BEFORE THEY WERE ANNEXED

  WHENEVER those states which have been acquired as stated have been
accustomed to live under their own laws and in freedom, there are
three courses for those who wish to hold them: the first is to ruin
them, the next is to reside there in person, the third is to permit
them to live under their own laws, drawing a tribute, and establishing
within it an oligarchy which will keep it friendly to you. Because
such a government, being created by the prince, knows that it cannot
stand without his friendship and interest, and does its utmost to
support him; and therefore he who would keep a city accustomed to
freedom will hold it more easily by the means of its own citizens than
in any other way.
  There are, for example, the Spartans and the Romans. The Spartans
held Athens and Thebes, establishing there an oligarchy,
nevertheless they lost them. The Romans, in order to hold Capua,
Carthage, and Numantia, dismantled them, and did not lose them. They
wished to hold Greece as the Spartans held it, making it free and
permitting its laws, and did not succeed. So to hold it they were
compelled to dismantle many cities in the country, for in truth
there is no safe way to retain them otherwise than by ruining them.