Machiavelli remains true to his positive and scientific philosophy of human nature. He will not allow that there are other permanent agencies in the world than the calculating ability of resolute men and the might derived from physical forces.
Among the eminent examples of Italian founders who rose to princely power by their own ability or by availing themselves of the advantages which fortune put within their reach, Machiavelli selects Francesco Sforza and Cesare Borgia. The former is a notable instance of success achieved by pure virtù: 'Francesco, by using the right means, and by his own singular ability, raised himself from the rank of a private man to the Duchy of Milan, and maintained with ease the mastery he had acquired with infinite pains.' Cesare, on the other hand, illustrates both the strength and the weakness of fortuna: 'he acquired his dominion by the aid derived from his father's position, and when he lost that he also lost his power, notwithstanding that he used every endeavor and did all that a prudent and able man ought to do in order to plant himself firmly in those states which the arms and fortune of others had placed at his disposal.' It is not necessary to dwell upon the career of Francesco Sforza. Not he but Cesare Borgia is Machiavelli's hero in this treatise, the example from which he deduces lessons both of imitation and avoidance for the benefit of Lorenzo de' Medici. Lorenzo, it must be remembered, like Cesare, would have the fortunes of the Church to start with in that career of ambition to which Machiavelli incites him. Unlike Francesco Sforza, he was no mere soldier of adventure, but a prince, born in the purple, and bound to make use of those undefined advantages which he derived from his position in Florence and from the countenance of his uncle, the Pope. The Duke Valentino, therefore, who is at one and the same time Machiavelli's ideal of prudence and courage in the conduct of affairs, and also his chief instance of the instability of fortune, supplies the philosopher with all he needed for the guidance of his princely pupil. With the Duke Valentino Machiavelli had conversed on terms of private intimacy, and there is no doubt that his imagination had been dazzled by the brilliant intellectual abilities of this consummate rogue. Dispatched in 1502 by the Florentine Republic to watch the operations of Cesare at Imola, with secret instructions to offer the Duke false promises in the hope of eliciting information that could be relied upon, Machiavelli had enjoyed the rare pleasure of a game at political écarté with the subtlest and most unscrupulous diplomatist of his age. He had witnessed his terrible yet beneficial administration of Romagna. He had been present at his murder of the chiefs of the Orsini faction at Sinigaglia. Cesare had confided to him, or had pretended to confide, his schemes of personal ambition, as well as the motives and the measures of his secret policy. On the day of the election of Pope Julius II. he had laid bare the whole of his past history before the Florentine secretary, and had pointed out the single weakness of which he felt himself to have been guilty. In these trials of skill and this exchange of confidence it is impossible to say which of the two gamesters may have been the more deceived. But Machiavelli felt that the Borgia supplied him with a perfect specimen for the study of the arts of statecraft; and so deep was the impression produced upon his mind, that even after the utter failure of Cesare's designs he made him the hero of the political romance before us. His artistic perception of the perfect and the beautiful, both in unscrupulous conduct and in frigid calculation of conflicting interests, was satisfied by the steady selfishness, the persistent perfidy, the profound mistrust of men, the self-command in the execution of perilous designs, the moderate and deliberate employment of cruelty for definite ends, which he observed in the young Duke, and which he has idealized in his own Principe. That nature, as of a salamander adapted to its element of fire, as of 'a resolute angel that delights in flame,' to which nothing was sacred, which nothing could daunt, which never for a moment sacrificed reason to passion, which was incapable of weakness or fatigue, had fascinated Machiavelli's fancy. The moral qualities of the man, the base foundations upon which he raised his power, the unutterable scandals of his private life, and the hatred of all Christendom were as nothing in the balance. Such considerations had, according to the conditions of his subject, to be eliminated before he weighed the intellectual qualities of the adventurer. 'If all the achievements of the Duke are considered'—it is Machiavelli speaking—'it will be found that he built up a great substructure for his future power; nor do I know what precepts I could furnish to a prince in his commencement better than such as are to be derived from his example.' It is thus that Machiavelli, the citizen, addresses Lorenzo, the tyrant of Florence. He says to him: Go thou and do likewise. And what, then, is this likewise?
Cesare, being a Pope's son, had nothing to look to but the influence of his father. At first he designed to use this influence in the Church; but after murdering his elder brother, he threw aside the Cardinal's scarlet and proclaimed himself a political aspirant. His father could not make him lord of any state, unless it were a portion of the territory of the Church: and though, by creating, as he did, twelve Cardinals in one day, he got the Sacred College to sanction his investiture of the Duchy of Romagna, yet both Venice and Milan were opposed to this scheme. Again there was a difficulty to be encountered in the great baronial houses of Orsini and Colonna, who at that time headed all the mercenary troops of Italy, and who, as Roman nobles, had a natural hatred for the Pope. It was necessary to use their aid in the acquisition of Cesare's principality. It was no less needful to humor their animosity. Under these circumstances Alexander thought it best to invite the French king into Italy, bargaining with Louis that he would dissolve his marriage in return for protection awarded to Cesare. The Colonna faction meanwhile was to be crushed, and the Orsini to be flattered. Cesare, by the help of his French allies and the Orsini captains, took possession of Imola and Faenza, and thence proceeded to overrun Romagna. In this enterprise he succeeded to the full. Romagna had been, from the earliest period of Italian history, a nest of petty tyrants who governed badly and who kept no peace in their dominions. Therefore the towns were but languid in their opposition to Cesare, and were soon more than contented with a conqueror who introduced a good system for the administration of justice. But now two difficulties arose. The subjugation of Romagna had been effected by the help of the French and the Orsini. Cesare as yet had formed no militia of his own, and his allies were becoming suspicious. The Orsini had shown some slackness at Faenza; and when Cesare proceeded to make himself master of Urbino, and to place a foot in Tuscany by the capture of Piombino—which conquests he completed during 1500 and 1501—Louis began to be jealous of him. The problem for the Duke was how to disembarrass himself of the two forces by which he had acquired a solid basis for his future principality. His first move was to buy over the Cardinal d'Amboise, whose influence in the French Court was supreme and thus to keep his credit for awhile afloat with Louis. His second was to neutralize the power of the Orsini, partly by pitting them against the Colonnesi, and partly by superseding them in their command as captains. For the latter purpose he became his own Condottiere, drawing to his standard by the lure of splendid pay all the minor gentry of the Roman Campagna. Thus he collected his own forces and was able to dispense with the unsafe aid of mercenary troops. At this point of his career the Orsini, finding him established in Romagna, in Urbino, and in part of Tuscany, while their own strength was on the decline, determined if possible to check the career of this formidable tyrant by assassination. The conspiracy known as the 'Diet of La Magione' was the consequence. In this conjuration the Cardinal Orsini, Paolo Orsini, his brother and head of the great house, together with Vitellozzo Vitelli, lord of Città di Castello, the Baglione of Perugia, the Bentivoglio of Bologna, Antonio da Venasso from Siena, and Oliverotto da Fermo took each a part. The result of their machinations against the common foe was that Cesare for a moment lost Urbino, and was nearly unseated in Romagna. But the French helped him, and he stood firm. Still it was impossible to believe that Louis XII. would suffer him to advance unchecked in his career of conquest; and as long as he continued between the French and the Orsini his position was of necessity insecure. The former had to be cast off; the latter to be extirpated; and yet he had not force enough to play an open game. 'He therefore,' says Machiavelli, 'turned to craft, and displayed such skill in dissimulation that the Orsini through the mediation of Paolo became his friends again.' The cruelty of Cesare Borgia was only equalled by his craft; and it was by a supreme exercise of his power of fascination that he lured the foes who had plotted against him at La Magione into his snare at Sinigaglia. Paolo Orsini, Francesco Orsini, duke of Gravina, Vitellozzo Vitelli, and Oliverotto da Fermo were all men of arms, accustomed to intrigue and to bloodshed, and more than one of them were stained with crimes of the most atrocious treachery. Yet such were the arts of Cesare Borgia that in 1502 he managed to assemble them, apart from their troops,