24
Why Italian rulers have lost their states
Followed carefully, the guidelines I’ve laid down will allow a ruler who’s just taken over a state to assume the aura of a hereditary king and give him even greater security and staying power than if his government was well established. People watch what a new ruler does far more attentively than they do a hereditary one and if his achievements are impressive they’ll have a greater hold on people and command greater loyalty than an old royal bloodline. Men are more interested in the present than the past and when things are going well they’ll be happy and won’t look elsewhere; on the contrary, they’ll do everything they can to defend a ruler so long as he doesn’t let himself down in other ways. So he’ll enjoy the double glory of having both founded a new kingdom and graced and consolidated it with good laws, a good army, good allies and good policies. Conversely, the man who’s born to power but behaves so stupidly as to lose it is shamed twice over.
Turning now to those Italian rulers who’ve lost power in recent years - the King of Naples, for example, and the Duke of Milan and others too - the first thing we find is that they all had poor armies, this for the reasons I discussed at length above. Then we see that some of them had the people against them, or if they did have the people’s support they couldn’t keep the nobles on their side. Without these failings you don’t lose a state that’s strong enough to field an army. Philip of Macedonia - not Alexander’s father but the Philip beaten by Titus Quintius - had nothing like the resources of the Romans and Greeks who attacked him: all the same, being a military man and a leader who knew how to please the people and keep the nobles on his side, he held out for many years and though in the end he did lose control of a few towns, at least he hung on to his kingdom.
So these rulers of ours, who were well-established kings and dukes yet still lost their states, should spare us their bad-luck stories; they have only themselves to blame. In peacetime they never imagined anything could change (it’s a common shortcoming not to prepare for the storm while the weather is fair) and when trouble struck their first thought was to run for it rather than defend themselves; they hoped the people would be incensed by the barbarity of the invaders and call them back. This isn’t a bad policy when you have no alternative, but to trust in that reaction when you could have taken other precautions is a serious failing; a ruler should never be resigned to falling from power because he’s counting on finding someone to prop him up again afterwards. Maybe people won’t oblige, and even if they do, you won’t be safe, because your strategy was spineless and involved relying on others. The only good, sure, lasting forms of defence are those based on yourself and your own strength.
25
The role of luck in human affairs, and how to defend against it
I realize that many people have believed and still do believe that the world is run by God and by fortune and that however shrewd men may be they can’t do anything about it and have no way of protecting themselves. As a result they may decide that it’s hardly worth making an effort and just leave events to chance. This attitude is more prevalent these days as a result of the huge changes we’ve witnessed and are still wit nessing every day, things that no one could have predicted. Sometimes, thinking it over, I have leaned a bit that way myself.
All the same, and so as not to give up on our free will, I reckon it may be true that luck decides the half of what we do, but it leaves the other half, more or less, to us. It’s like one of those raging rivers that sometimes rise and flood the plain, tearing down trees and buildings, dragging soil from one place and dumping it down in another. Everybody runs for safety, no one can resist the rush, there’s no way you can stop it. Still, the fact that a river is like this doesn’t prevent us from preparing for trouble when levels are low, building banks and dykes, so that when the water rises the next time it can be contained in a single channel and the rush of the river in flood is not so uncontrolled and destructive.
Fortune’s the same. It shows its power where no one has taken steps to contain it, flooding into places where it finds neither banks nor dykes that can hold it back. And if you look at Italy, which has been both the scene of revolutionary changes and the agent that set them in motion, you’ll see it’s a land that has neither banks nor dykes to protect it. Had the country been properly protected, like Germany, Spain and France, either the flood wouldn’t have had such drastic effects or it wouldn’t have happened at all.
I think that is all that need be said in general terms about how to deal with the problem of luck.
Going into detail, though, we’ve all seen how a ruler may be doing well one day and then lose power the next without any apparent change in his character or qualities. I believe this is mostly due to the attitude I mentioned above: that is, the ruler trusts entirely to luck and collapses when it changes. I’m also convinced that the successful ruler is the one who adapts to changing times; while the leader who fails does so because his approach is out of step with circumstances.
All men want glory and wealth, but they set out to achieve those goals in different ways. Some are cautious, others impulsive; some use violence, others finesse; some are patient, others quite the opposite. And all these different approaches can be successful. It’s also true that two men can both be cautious but with different results: one is successful and the other fails. Or again you see two men being equally successful but with different approaches, one cautious, the other impulsive. This depends entirely on whether their approach suits the circumstances, which in turn is why, as I said, two men with different approaches may both succeed while, of two with the same approach, one may succeed and the other not.
This explains why people’s fortunes go up and down. If someone is behaving cautiously and patiently and the times and circumstances are such that the approach works, he’ll be successful. But if times and circumstances change, everything goes wrong for him, because he hasn’t changed his approach to match. You won’t find anyone shrewd enough to adapt his character like this, in part because you can’t alter your natural bias and in part because, if a person has always been successful with a particular approach, he won’t easily be persuaded to drop it. So when the time comes for the cautious man to act impulsively, he can’t, and he comes unstuck. If he did change personality in line with times and circumstances, his luck would hold steady.
Pope Julius II always acted impulsively and lived in times and circumstances so well suited to this approach that things always went well for him. Think of his first achievement, taking Bologna while Giovanni Bentivoglio was still alive. The Venetians were against the idea, the King of Spain likewise, and Julius was still negotiating the matter with the French. All the same, and with his usual ferocity and impetuousness, the pope set out and led the expedition himself. This put the Venetians and Spanish in a quandary and they were unable to react, the Venetians out of fear and the Spanish because they hoped to recover the whole of the Kingdom of Naples. Meanwhile, the King of France was brought on board: he needed Rome as an ally to check the Venetians and decided that once Julius had made his move he couldn’t deny him armed support without too obviously slighting him.
With this impulsive decision, then, Julius achieved more than any other pope with all the good sense in the world would ever have achieved. Had he waited to have everything arranged and negotiated before leaving Rome, as any other pope would have done, the plan would never have worked. The King of France would have come up with endless excuses and the Venetians and Spanish with endless warnings. I don’t want to go into Julius’s other campaigns, which were all of a kind and all successful. His early death spared him the experience of failure. Because if times had changed and circumstances demanded caution, he would have been finished. The man would never have changed his ways, because they were natural to him.
To conclude then: fortune varies but men go on regardless. When their approach suits the times they’re successful, and when it doesn’t they’re not. My opinion on the m
atter is this: it’s better to be impulsive than cautious; fortune is female and if you want to stay on top of her you have to slap and thrust. You’ll see she’s more likely to yield that way than to men who go about her coldly. And being a woman she likes her men young, because they’re not so cagey, they’re wilder and more daring when they master her.
26
An appeal to conquer Italy and free it from foreign occupation
Going back over everything I’ve said, I’ve been asking myself whether the time is right, in Italy now, for a new ruler; whether there’s the sort of material available here that would give a shrewd man with the right qualities the chance to impose some form, winning honour for himself and doing good to the people as a whole. And my impression is that a lot of things are running the way of a new man, so many in fact that I don’t know what time was ever more right than the present. If, as I said earlier, Moses could only emerge after the people of Israel had been enslaved in Egypt, Cyrus show his great spirit after the Persians were crushed by the Medes, Theseus prove his excellence after the Athenians were defeated and dispersed, so today, for us to witness the qualities of a great Italian, the country had to be reduced to its present state: more slave than the Jews, more crushed than the Persians, more divided than the Athenians, leaderless, lawless, beaten, plundered, broken and overrun, ruined in every way.
There was one man5 who showed glimpses of greatness, the kind of thing that made you think he was sent by God for the country’s redemption, but then at the height of his achievements his luck turned. So now Italy lies, half-dead, waiting to see who will heal her wounds and put an end to the devastation of Lombardy, the extortionate taxation of Tuscany and Naples, who will clean up the sores that have festered too long. You can see the country is praying God to send someone to save her from the cruelty and barbarity of these foreigners. You can see she is ready and willing to march beneath a flag, if only someone would raise one up.
What I can’t see is any family the country could put its faith in right now if not your illustrious house,6 blessed as it is with fine qualities and fortune, favoured by God and the Church - actually running the Church, in fact - and hence well placed to lead Italy to redemption. And if you keep in mind the lives and achievements of the men I’ve written about, then the project won’t be too difficult. It’s true they were rare men, remarkable men, but nevertheless they were still men, and none of them had a better opportunity than you have now. The things they did had no greater justification, nor were they any easier; God was no kinder to them than he has been to you. Justice is definitely on our side because ‘war is just when there’s no alternative and arms are sacred when they are your only hope.’ The situation is more than favourable, and when circumstances are favourable things can’t be too hard; all you have to do is take the men I’ve proposed as your models. What’s more, God has shown us amazing, unprecedented signs: the sea parted; a cloud led the way for you; stone has gushed water; manna has rained on us from heaven; everything has worked together to make you great. The rest is up to you. God doesn’t like doing everything himself, he doesn’t want to deprive us of our free will and our share of glory.
It’s no surprise if none of the Italians I’ve spoken about have been able to do what I believe your family can do, or again if all our recent wars and revolutions have given the impression that the country has lost its capacity to fight. This is because the old states were badly organized and no one knew how to improve things. Nothing brings more honour to a new ruler than the new laws and institutions he introduces. When they are well thought out and show vision they bring a ruler respect and admiration. Italy is hardly lacking in raw material for the man who wants to give form to it. The limbs are healthy and strong; all they need is a head to guide them. Look how much stronger, defter and more skilful Italians are than foreigners in duels or small skirmishes. But when it comes to armies they can’t compete. Because they are badly led. The capable men are ignored, the incapable are convinced they are capable, and to date no one has had the talent and luck to score the sort of success that would force the others to stand aside. That’s why in all these wars over the past twenty years, whenever an army has been entirely made up of Italians it has always failed miserably, as witness first the battle of Taro, then those of Alessandria, Capua, Genova, Vailà, Bologna and Mestre.
So if your illustrious family should choose to follow in the steps of those excellent men who came to the rescue of their peoples, the first thing that needs to be done, the real foundation of any such achievement, is to establish an army of your own citizens. You can’t have more loyal, determined and better soldiers than your own. And if each man taken singly is good, when they’re all together and find themselves led, fed and respected by their own ruler they’ll be even better. Founding an army like this is absolutely essential if we are to use Italian mettle to defend ourselves against foreign enemies.
It’s true that the Swiss and Spanish infantries are thought to be formidable, but both have weak points that would allow a third force not only to face them but to feel confident of beating them. The Spanish can’t stand up to cavalry and the Swiss are in trouble when they run into infantry as determined as themselves. That’s why, as we’ve seen and will see again, the Spanish can’t turn back a French cavalry attack and the Swiss collapse in front of a Spanish-style infantry. And though we haven’t had complete proof of this Swiss vulnerability, we got a glimpse of it at the battle of Ravenna when the Spanish infantry took on the Germans, who use the same tactics as the Swiss. Relying on their agility and their small round shields, the Spanish got under the German pikes, where, safe themselves, they could strike at will. At this point the Germans were helpless and if the cavalry hadn’t turned up to push the Spanish back they’d all have been killed. Knowing the weak points of these two armies, then, it’s quite possible to train a new army that could hold back a cavalry attack and wouldn’t be unsettled by infantry combat: it’s a question of what weapons you have and what new tactics you can invent. These are the kinds of developments that enhance a new ruler’s reputation and bring him great prestige.
It would be a big mistake, then, after all this time, to pass up the chance of rescuing Italy. Words can’t express the loving welcome such a saviour would get in all the towns that have suffered from this torrent of foreign invaders: the thirst for revenge, the unswerving trust, the devotion, the tears. What doors would be closed to such a man? Who would refuse to obey him? What envy could stand in his way? What Italian would not bow his knee? Everybody loathes this barbarous occupation. So, may your noble house undertake this duty with the spirit and hope that inspire just causes, so that our country may be glorified under your banner, and under your protection Petrarch’s words be fulfilled:Virtue against fury
Shall take up arms; and the fight be short;
For ancient valour
Is not dead in Italian hearts.7
Glossary of Proper Names
Machiavelli would have expected his readers to be familiar with the exploits of the men he mentions from contemporary and modern times, while they would not have known so much about some of the figures he cites from ancient history. In an attempt to put today’s reader in something of the same position, I have been more generous with information on the figures from modern history, and less so with those from Roman times and before.
ACHILLESGreek hero in the Trojan War, son of the immortal nymph Thetis and raised by Chiron the centaur.
ACUTO, GIOVANNI Italianization of John Hawkwood (1320- 94). Having served in the English army in France, in 1360 Hawkwood joined mercenary soldiers in Burgundy and later commanded the so-called White Company fighting for different states and factions in Italy. Constantly playing off his employers against their enemies, he built up considerable wealth. From 1390 on he commanded Florentine armies in their war against the Viscontis of Milan.
AGATHOCLES (361-289 BC) Ruler of Syracuse (317-289 BC) and King of Sicily (304-289 BC). Seized power in Syracuse, exiling and mu
rdering thousands in the process. His formation of a strong army and domination of Sicily led to protracted conflict with Carthage.
ALBINUS Decimus Clodius Ceionius Septimius (c.150-197). Roman military commander in Britain who proclaimed himself emperor on the murder of Pertinax in 193. Albinus initially allied himself with Severus in Rome who had also proclaimed himself emperor, but the two fell out and in 197, having lost the Battle of Lugdunum (modern Lyons), Albinus either killed himself or was killed.
ALEXANDERAlexander the Great (356-323 BC), King of Macedonia (336-323 BC). He conquered Greece, Persia, and much of Asia.
ALEXANDER Marcus Aurelius Alexander Severus (208-235), Roman emperor (222-235). Adopted as his heir in 221 by the emperor Heliogabalus, who was also his first cousin, Alexander was eventually murdered by his own soldiers.
ALEXANDER VI Rodrigo Borgia (1431-1503). Born in Valencia with the Spanish surname Borja, later Italianized to Borgia. Elected pope in 1492, Alexander openly recognized as many as eight illegitimate children, all of whom he tried to place in high positions. The most famous were Cesare Borgia and Lucrezia Borgia. Involved in endless intrigues to extend his territories and increase his wealth, Alexander was considered the most corrupt and grasping of the Renaissance popes. Although frequently accused of murder, usually by poison, there is no evidence that his own sudden illness and death in 1503 were the result of poisoning.