The Prince

DEDICATION

To the Magnificent Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici

People who hope to win a prince’s favor usually come to him bearing the things they value most, or the things they see give him the greatest pleasure. That is why princes are so often presented with horses, weapons, cloth of gold, precious stones, and similar ornaments worthy of their high position.

I, too, wish to come before Your Magnificence with some proof of my devotion. Yet among everything I own, I have found nothing I hold dearer or value more highly than my knowledge of the actions of great men.

I acquired this knowledge through long experience of present-day affairs and through constant study of the ancient world. I have reflected on it with great and prolonged care. Now I have condensed it into a small volume, which I send to Your Magnificence.

I may consider this work unworthy of your attention. Even so, I trust a great deal in your kindness to accept it. I cannot give you a better gift than the chance to understand, in a very short time, everything I have learned over so many years and through so many hardships and dangers.

I have not decorated this work with inflated or grand language. I have not packed it with polished, elaborate sentences, or with any of the outward charms and ornaments that so many writers use to dress up their books. I wanted it either to receive no honor at all, or else to be welcomed only for the truth of its contents and the seriousness of its subject.

Some people think it presumptuous for a man of low and humble rank to discuss the affairs of princes and lay down rules for them. I do not agree. Consider artists who sketch the countryside. To study the shape of mountains and high places, they position themselves down on the plain. To study the plains, they climb up onto the high mountains.

The same holds for understanding political life. To understand the nature of the people, one must be a prince. To understand the nature of princes, one must be one of the people.

So please accept this small gift, Your Magnificence, in the spirit in which I send it. If you read it carefully and reflect on it, you will discover how deeply I wish for you to reach the greatness that fortune and your other qualities promise.

And if Your Magnificence, from the height of your greatness, will sometimes look down to these lower places, you will see how undeservedly I endure the great and unrelenting hostility of fortune.

CHAPTER I. HOW MANY KINDS OF PRINCIPALITIES THERE ARE, AND BY WHAT MEANS THEY ARE ACQUIRED

Every state and every power that has ever ruled over people, or rules over them now, has been and still is either a republic or a principality.

Principalities are either hereditary or new. In a hereditary principality, the ruling family has been established for a long time.

New principalities are of two kinds. Some are entirely new, as Milan was to Francesco Sforza. Others are like limbs attached to the hereditary state of the prince who acquires them, as the kingdom of Naples was to the King of Spain.

Territories acquired in this way are either used to living under a prince or used to living in freedom. They are acquired either with the prince’s own armies or with the armies of others, and either by fortune or by ability.

CHAPTER II. CONCERNING HEREDITARY PRINCIPALITIES

I will leave aside any discussion of republics, since I have written about them at length elsewhere. Here I will deal only with principalities. I will follow the order set out above and discuss how such principalities are to be governed and kept.

I will say at once that hereditary states, whose people have long been used to their prince’s family, are much easier to hold than new ones. A prince of only average ability can keep such a state if he does two things. He must avoid breaking with the customs of his ancestors, and he must handle problems sensibly as they arise.

Only some extraordinary and overwhelming force can take such a state from him. Even if he does lose it, he will win it back as soon as the usurper runs into any misfortune.

Italy offers an example in the Duke of Ferrara. He could not have withstood the attacks of the Venetians in 1484, or those of Pope Julius in 1510, if his family had not been long established in its territories.

The reason is that a hereditary prince has fewer reasons and less need to offend his subjects. As a result, he is more likely to be loved. Unless some extraordinary vices make him hated, his subjects can reasonably be expected to feel a natural goodwill toward him.

The age and long duration of his family’s rule also matter. Over time, people forget the memories and lose the motives that encourage change. Each change leaves a foundation for the next one, like the toothing of a wall: the stones left jutting out at its edge so that a later addition can be built onto it.

CHAPTER III. CONCERNING MIXED PRINCIPALITIES

The real difficulties arise in a new principality. Suppose, first, that it is not entirely new, but is added like a limb to an existing state, so that the two together may be called a composite, or mixed, state. Here the changes come mainly from a difficulty found in every new principality.

People willingly change their rulers in the hope of improving their lot, and this hope leads them to take up arms against whoever governs them. They are deceived in this, because experience later shows them that they have gone from bad to worse.

This follows from another natural and common necessity. A new prince must always burden those who have submitted to him, both with his soldiers and with countless other hardships that come with taking possession of a new territory.

As a result, you make enemies of everyone you have injured in seizing that principality. Nor can you keep as friends the people who helped put you there, because you cannot reward them as they expected. At the same time, you cannot take harsh measures against them, since you feel obligated to them. However strong your armies may be, you always need the goodwill of the inhabitants when you enter a province.

For these reasons Louis the Twelfth, King of France, quickly occupied Milan and just as quickly lost it. The first time, Lodovico’s own forces were enough to drive him out. The people who had opened the gates to Louis found their hopes of future benefit disappointed, and they would not put up with the ill-treatment of their new prince.

It is quite true that when a prince conquers a rebellious province a second time, he does not lose it so easily afterward. The rebellion gives him an opportunity he is happy to take: he punishes the offenders, removes anyone under suspicion, and strengthens himself wherever he is weakest.

So the first time, it was enough for Duke Lodovico to stir up revolts along the borders to make France lose Milan. The second time, it took the whole world uniting against the king, with his armies defeated and driven out of Italy. This difference followed from the causes just described.

Even so, Milan was taken from France both times. The general reasons for the first loss have been discussed. It remains to explain the reasons for the second, and to consider what resources the King of France had, and what resources anyone in his position would have had, for holding the conquest more securely than he did.

I say, then, that territories a ruler conquers and adds to his long-established state either share its country and language or they do not. When they do, they are easier to hold, especially if they are not used to governing themselves. To hold them securely, it is enough to have wiped out the family of the prince who ruled them.

In everything else the people keep their old conditions, and since the two peoples have similar customs, they will live together peacefully. This has been seen in Brittany, Burgundy, Gascony, and Normandy, which have been joined to France for a long time. Although there may be some difference in language, the customs are alike, and the people can easily get along with one another.

Whoever has annexed such territories and wants to keep them needs to keep only two things in mind. First, the family of their former ruler must be extinguished. Second, neither their laws nor their taxes should be changed. In a very short time, they will then become one body with the old principality.

But when a ruler acquires states in a region that differs in language, customs, or laws, the difficulties begin. Holding them requires good fortune and great energy. One of the greatest and most effective remedies would be for the conqueror to go and live there himself. This would make his position more secure and lasting.

It has done exactly that for the Turk in Greece. Whatever other measures he took to hold that state, he could not have kept it if he had not settled there.

When the ruler is present, he sees disorders as they arise and can quickly correct them. When he is absent, he hears of them only after they have grown large, and by then he can no longer correct them.

There are other advantages as well. The country is not plundered by the ruler’s officials, and the subjects are satisfied because they can appeal directly to the prince. Those who wish to behave well therefore have more reason to love him, and those who wish to behave otherwise have more reason to fear him.

Anyone who wants to attack that state from outside must proceed with the utmost caution. As long as the prince lives there, it can be taken from him only with the greatest difficulty.

The other course, and the better one, is to plant colonies in one or two places that serve as keys to the state. A ruler must either do this or keep a large force of cavalry and infantry there.

Colonies cost a prince little. He can send them out and maintain them at little or no expense. He offends only a minority of the inhabitants, namely those whose lands and houses he takes to give to the new settlers.

The people he offends are left poor and scattered, so they can never harm him. Everyone else, having suffered no injury, is easily kept quiet. They are also anxious not to step out of line, for fear that they will be stripped of their property like the others.

In short, colonies are inexpensive, they are more loyal, and they cause less harm. The people they do harm, being poor and scattered, as already said, cannot strike back.

From this we should note that people must either be treated well or crushed. They can take revenge for minor injuries, but not for severe ones. Any injury done to a man, therefore, should be of such a kind that there is no need to fear his revenge.

Keeping soldiers there instead of colonies costs far more. The entire revenue of the state must be spent on the garrison, so that the conquest turns into a loss. Far more people are angered, too, because the whole state suffers.

As the garrison moves from place to place, everyone experiences hardship, and everyone becomes hostile. These are enemies who, though defeated, remain on their own ground and are still able to do harm. For every reason, then, such garrisons are as useless as colonies are useful.

Furthermore, a prince who holds a country that differs from his own in these respects should make himself the leader and protector of his weaker neighbors, and he should weaken the stronger ones. He must also take care that no foreigner as powerful as himself gets a foothold there by any chance.

Such a foreigner will always be brought in by those who are discontented, whether from excessive ambition or from fear, as has already been seen. The Romans were brought into Greece by the Aetolians, and in every other country where they gained a foothold, they were brought in by the inhabitants.

The usual course of events is that, as soon as a powerful foreigner enters a country, all the weaker states there are drawn to him, moved by their hatred of the power that has been ruling over them. He does not have to work to win them over, because they all quickly rally to the state he has acquired there.

He has only to make sure they do not gain too much power and authority. Then, with his own forces and their goodwill, he can easily keep down the more powerful states and remain complete master of the country. Whoever fails to manage this properly will soon lose what he has gained, and while he holds it, he will face endless difficulties and troubles.

The Romans followed these measures closely in the countries they annexed. They planted colonies and kept friendly relations with the lesser powers without increasing their strength. They kept down the greater powers, and they did not allow any strong foreign power to gain influence.

Greece seems to me a sufficient example. The Romans kept the Achaeans and Aetolians friendly, humbled the kingdom of Macedonia, and drove out Antiochus.

Yet the services of the Achaeans and Aetolians never earned them permission to increase their power. Philip’s persuasions never induced the Romans to become his friends without first humbling him. Nor did the power of Antiochus ever bring them to agree that he should keep any authority in that country.

In these cases the Romans did what all prudent princes must do. Such princes must attend not only to present troubles but also to future ones, and they must prepare for these with all their energy. When troubles are foreseen, they are easy to remedy. If you wait until they are upon you, the medicine comes too late, because the disease has become incurable.

Physicians say the same of hectic fever, a wasting illness. At the beginning it is easy to cure but hard to detect. Over time, if it has been neither detected nor treated at the start, it becomes easy to detect but hard to cure.

The same thing happens in affairs of state. When evils are foreseen as they arise, which only a wise man is able to do, they can be quickly corrected. But when they are not foreseen and are allowed to grow until everyone can see them, there is no longer any remedy.

The Romans, therefore, foresaw troubles and dealt with them at once. They would not let them come to a head even to avoid a war, because they knew that war cannot be avoided. It can only be postponed, to the advantage of others.

They also wanted to fight Philip and Antiochus in Greece so that they would not have to fight them in Italy. They could have avoided both wars for the time being, but they did not wish to.

Nor did the Romans ever care for the saying constantly repeated by the wise men of our own time: “Let us enjoy the benefits of time.” They preferred to enjoy the benefits of their own courage and prudence. Time sweeps everything before it, and it can bring good as well as evil, and evil as well as good.

But let us turn to France and ask whether she did any of the things just described. I will speak of Louis rather than Charles, because his conduct is easier to study, since he held possessions in Italy for the longest time. You will see that he did the opposite of what must be done to keep a state made up of different elements.

King Louis was brought into Italy by the ambition of the Venetians, who wanted to gain half of Lombardy through his intervention. I do not blame the king for the course he took. He wanted a foothold in Italy and had no friends there. In fact, every door was shut against him because of how Charles had behaved.

He was therefore forced to accept whatever friendships he could get. He would have succeeded very quickly in his plan if he had not made certain mistakes in other matters.

Having taken Lombardy, the king at once regained the authority Charles had lost. Genoa submitted, and the Florentines became his friends. The Marquess of Mantua, the Duke of Ferrara, the Bentivogli, the Lady of Forlì, the Lords of Faenza, Pesaro, Rimini, Camerino, and Piombino, and the people of Lucca, Pisa, and Siena all approached him seeking his friendship.

Then the Venetians could see how rash their course had been. To gain two towns in Lombardy, they had made the king master of two-thirds of Italy.

Consider now how easily the king could have kept his position in Italy if he had followed the rules set out above and kept all his friends secure and protected. They were numerous, but they were weak and fearful. Some feared the Church and some feared the Venetians, so they would always have been forced to stay on his side.

With their help, he could easily have secured himself against those who remained powerful. But no sooner was he in Milan than he did the opposite, by helping Pope Alexander occupy the Romagna.

It never occurred to him that this action weakened him. He was losing his friends, and losing those who had thrown themselves into his arms. At the same time, he was making the Church greater by adding a great deal of worldly power to its spiritual power, and so giving it more authority.

Having made this first mistake, he was forced to follow it with others. In the end, to stop Alexander’s ambition and prevent him from becoming master of Tuscany, Louis himself had to come into Italy.

As if it were not enough to have made the Church greater and lost his friends, he then wanted the kingdom of Naples and divided it with the King of Spain. Where he had been the chief arbiter of Italy, he took on a partner. This gave the ambitious men of that country, and the discontented men of his own, somewhere to turn for shelter.

He could have left a king in that kingdom who depended on him and lived on his pension. Instead, he drove that king out, to put in his place one who was able to drive Louis himself out in turn.

The desire to acquire is, in truth, very natural and common. People always acquire when they are able to, and for this they will be praised, not blamed. But when they lack the means and still want to acquire by any means possible, that is folly, and it deserves blame.

Therefore, if France could have attacked Naples with her own forces, she ought to have done so. If she could not, she ought not to have divided the kingdom with Spain.

The partition France made with the Venetians in Lombardy could be excused, because it gave her a foothold in Italy. This second partition deserved blame, because no such necessity excused it.

Louis therefore made these five errors:

• He destroyed the lesser 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 himself.
• He did not send colonies.

Had he lived, these errors alone would not have been enough to injure him. But he made a sixth: he took the Venetians’ territories away from them.

Had he not first strengthened the Church and brought Spain into Italy, it would have been quite reasonable, even necessary, to humble the Venetians. But having already taken those steps, he ought never to have agreed to their ruin.

The Venetians, being powerful, would always have kept others from making designs on Lombardy. They would never have allowed anyone else to take it unless they themselves became its masters.

Nor would the other powers have wanted to take Lombardy from France only to hand it to the Venetians. And they would not have had the courage to challenge France and Venice together.

Someone might say: “King Louis gave the Romagna to Pope Alexander and the kingdom of Naples to Spain in order to avoid war.” For the reasons given above, I answer that one should never commit a blunder to avoid a war. The war is not avoided. It is only postponed, and to your disadvantage.

Another might point to the promise the king had made to the Pope. Louis had pledged to help him in his enterprise in exchange for the dissolution of the king’s marriage and a cardinal’s hat for the Archbishop of Rouen.

To that I reply with what I will write later about the faith of princes and how it ought to be kept.

So King Louis lost Lombardy because he followed none of the conditions observed by those who have taken possession of countries and wished to keep them. There is nothing miraculous in this. It is entirely reasonable and natural.

I spoke about these matters at Nantes with the Cardinal of Rouen. This was when Valentino occupied the Romagna. Valentino was the name commonly given to Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander.

The Cardinal remarked to me that the Italians did not understand war. I replied that the French did not understand statecraft. I meant that if they had understood it, they would never have allowed the Church to become so great.

Experience has in fact shown that France caused the greatness of the Church and of Spain in Italy, and that France’s ruin can be traced to them.

From this we can draw a general rule that never, or only rarely, fails: whoever causes another to become powerful is ruined. That power was produced either by cleverness or by force, and the one who has been raised to power distrusts both.

CHAPTER IV. WHY THE KINGDOM OF DARIUS, CONQUERED BY ALEXANDER, DID NOT REBEL AGAINST THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER AT HIS DEATH

Given how hard it has been for rulers to hold a newly acquired state, some may wonder about Alexander the Great. He became master of Asia in only a few years and died when it was barely settled. It would seem reasonable to expect the whole empire to rebel.

Yet his successors kept their hold on it. The only trouble they faced came from among themselves, from their own ambitions.

I answer that the principalities we have records of are governed in one of two ways. In the first, a prince rules with a body of servants. They help him govern the kingdom as ministers, but only by his favor and permission.

In the second, a prince rules together with barons. These barons hold their rank because of the antiquity of their family line, not by the prince’s grace. They have their own states and their own subjects, who recognize them as lords and feel a natural affection for them.

In states governed by a prince and his servants, the prince commands more respect. No one in the whole country is recognized as his superior. If the people obey anyone else, they obey him only as the prince’s minister and official, and they feel no particular affection for him.

In our own time, the two examples of these forms of government are the Turk and the King of France. The entire Turkish monarchy is governed by one lord, and everyone else is his servant. He divides his kingdom into districts called sanjaks and sends different administrators to them, moving and replacing them as he chooses.

The King of France, by contrast, stands among an ancient body of lords. Their own subjects acknowledge and love them. These lords have their own privileges, and the king cannot take these away without putting himself in danger.

Anyone who compares these two states will see that the Turkish state is very difficult to seize, but once conquered, very easy to hold. It is hard to seize for two reasons. The princes of the kingdom cannot invite an invader in, and he cannot hope that a revolt by the lord’s circle will help his plans.

This follows from what was said above. The Turk’s ministers are all slaves and bondmen, so they are very hard to corrupt. Even if they are corrupted, they offer little advantage, because they cannot bring the people along with them, for the reasons already given.

Whoever attacks the Turk must therefore expect to find him united. He will have to rely on his own strength rather than on rebellion by others.

But suppose the Turk has been conquered and so thoroughly defeated in battle that he cannot rebuild his armies. Then there is nothing left to fear except the prince’s own family. Once that family is wiped out, no one remains to be feared, because the others have no standing with the people. The conqueror did not rely on them before his victory, and so he need not fear them after it.

The opposite happens in kingdoms governed like France. You can enter easily by winning over some baron of the kingdom, because there are always discontented people and others who want change. For the reasons already given, such men can open the way into the state and make victory easy.

But if you then want to hold the state, you meet endless difficulties. These come both from those who helped you and from those you have crushed.

Nor is it enough to wipe out the prince’s family. The lords who remain make themselves the leaders of new movements against you. Since you can neither satisfy them nor destroy them all, you will lose the state as soon as time gives them the opportunity.

Now consider the nature of Darius’s government. You will find it similar to the Turkish kingdom. Alexander therefore only needed to defeat him in battle first, and then take the country from him.

After that victory, and with Darius dead, the state remained secure in Alexander’s hands, for the reasons given above. If his successors had stayed united, they could have enjoyed it securely and at their ease. No disturbances arose in the kingdom except the ones they stirred up themselves.

States organized like France, however, cannot be held so peacefully. This explains the frequent rebellions against the Romans in Spain, Gaul, and Greece. These lands contained many principalities, and as long as people remembered them, Roman possession remained insecure.

But as the empire’s power and long duration wore that memory away, the Romans became secure possessors. Later, when the Romans fought among themselves, each leader could win over his own parts of these lands, according to the authority he had established there. Because the families of the former lords had been wiped out, the people acknowledged no one but the Romans.

Once these things are remembered, no one will be surprised at how easily Alexander held the empire of Asia. Nor will anyone be surprised at the difficulties others have had in keeping what they conquered, such as Pyrrhus and many more. The difference does not come from how much or how little ability the conqueror had, but from how uniform or varied the conquered state was.

CHAPTER V. CONCERNING THE WAY TO GOVERN CITIES OR PRINCIPALITIES WHICH LIVED UNDER THEIR OWN LAWS BEFORE THEY WERE ANNEXED

Some states acquired in the ways I have described were used to living freely under their own laws. Anyone who wants to hold such states has three options.

• The first is to ruin them.
• The second is to go and live there in person.
• The third is to let them keep living under their own laws while collecting tribute from them, and to set up a small ruling group, an oligarchy, that will keep the state friendly to you.

The third option works because a government created by the prince knows it cannot survive without his friendship and support. It will therefore do everything it can to keep him in power. For this reason, someone who wants to keep a city accustomed to freedom will hold it more easily through its own citizens than by any other method.

The Spartans and the Romans offer examples. The Spartans held Athens and Thebes by setting up oligarchies there, and they lost both cities anyway. The Romans, in order to hold Capua, Carthage, and Numantia, tore them apart, and they did not lose them.

The Romans also tried to hold Greece the way the Spartans had held it. They left the country free and allowed it to keep its own laws, and the attempt failed. To hold Greece, they were forced to tear apart many of its cities. The truth is that there is no safe way to keep such cities except by ruining them.

Whoever becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it can expect to be destroyed by it. When it rebels, it always has the cry of liberty and its ancient privileges to rally around. Neither the passage of time nor any benefits the new ruler grants will ever make it forget them.

Whatever you do, and whatever precautions you take, the people never forget the name of liberty or their old privileges. They forget them only if they are divided or scattered. Otherwise they rally to these memories at every opportunity. Pisa did exactly this after the Florentines had held her in subjection for a hundred years.

Cities or countries accustomed to living under a prince behave differently. Suppose the prince’s family has been wiped out. On the one hand, the people are used to obeying. On the other hand, they no longer have their old prince. They cannot agree on choosing a new one from among themselves, and they do not know how to govern themselves.

For this reason, such people are very slow to take up arms. A new prince can win them over and secure his hold on them much more easily.

Republics are different. They have more vitality, deeper hatred, and a stronger desire for revenge. These feelings never allow the memory of their former liberty to fade. The safest course, therefore, is either to destroy them or to go and live there.

CHAPTER VI. CONCERNING NEW PRINCIPALITIES WHICH ARE ACQUIRED BY ONE’S OWN ARMS AND ABILITY

In discussing entirely new principalities, I will cite the very greatest examples of both princes and states. No one should be surprised by this. People almost always walk along paths that others have already worn down, and they act by imitating what others have done. Yet they can never follow those paths exactly, nor can they reach the full power of the people they imitate.

A wise man should therefore always follow the paths taken by great men and imitate those who have been the most outstanding. Then, even if his own ability does not equal theirs, it will at least carry some trace of it.

He should act like skilled archers. When the target seems too far away, they know how far their bow can carry. So they aim well above the target. They do not expect the arrow to reach that height. Instead, aiming high lets them hit the mark they actually want to reach.

I say, then, that in entirely new principalities, where the prince himself is also new, the difficulty of keeping the state depends on how much ability the person who acquired it has. The more ability he has, the less difficulty he faces.

Rising from private life to become a prince requires either ability or good fortune. Clearly, either one will ease many difficulties to some degree. Even so, the prince who has relied least on fortune is the most firmly established. Matters also become easier when the prince has no other state and is therefore forced to live in his new one in person.

Now I turn to those who became princes through their own ability rather than through fortune. The finest examples are Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and others like them.

We should not really discuss Moses, since he simply carried out the will of God. Still, he deserves admiration, if only for the grace that made him worthy to speak with God.

But when we consider Cyrus and the others who acquired or founded kingdoms, all of them prove admirable. If we examine their particular deeds and conduct, they will not seem inferior to those of Moses, even though Moses had so great a teacher.

When we examine their actions and lives, we cannot see that they owed anything to fortune except opportunity. Opportunity gave them the raw material, which they then shaped into whatever form seemed best to them.

Without that opportunity, their strength of mind would have been wasted. And without that strength of mind, the opportunity would have come to nothing.

Moses therefore needed to find the people of Israel enslaved and oppressed by the Egyptians in Egypt. Only then would they be willing to follow him in order to escape their bondage.

Romulus needed to leave Alba and to have been abandoned at birth, so that he could become King of Rome and founder of his nation. Cyrus needed to find the Persians unhappy with the rule of the Medes, and the Medes grown soft and weak through a long peace. Theseus could not have shown his ability if he had not found the Athenians scattered.

These opportunities, then, made these men fortunate. But it was their great ability that allowed them to recognize those opportunities, and through them their countries became noble and famous.

Those who become princes through courage and ability, as these men did, acquire their principality with difficulty but keep it with ease. Their difficulties in acquiring it come partly from the new rules and methods they are forced to introduce in order to establish their government and make it secure.

It should be remembered that nothing is harder to undertake, more dangerous to carry out, or less certain to succeed than leading the introduction of a new order of things.

The reason is this. The innovator makes enemies of everyone who did well under the old conditions. Meanwhile, those who might do well under the new conditions defend him only half-heartedly.

Their lack of enthusiasm has two causes. Partly they fear their opponents, who have the law on their side. Partly it comes from human disbelief, since people do not readily trust new things until they have long experience of them.

As a result, whenever the innovator’s enemies have a chance to attack, they do so with the fervor of committed partisans. His supporters, by contrast, defend him half-heartedly. The prince is then endangered along with them.

To discuss this question thoroughly, then, we must ask whether these innovators can rely on themselves or must depend on others. Put another way: to complete their enterprise, must they ask for help, or can they use force?

In the first case, they always fare badly and never accomplish anything. But when they can rely on themselves and use force, they are rarely in danger. This is why every armed prophet has conquered, and every unarmed one has been destroyed.

Besides the reasons already given, people’s nature is changeable. It is easy to persuade them of something, but hard to keep them persuaded. So it is necessary to arrange matters so that, when they no longer believe, they can be made to believe by force.

If Moses, Cyrus, Theseus, and Romulus had been unarmed, they could not have enforced their constitutions for long.

This is what happened in our own time to Fra Girolamo Savonarola. He was ruined, along with his new order of things, as soon as the multitude stopped believing in him. He had no means of keeping his believers steadfast or of making unbelievers believe.

Men like these therefore face great difficulties in completing their enterprise. All their dangers come during the climb, though with ability they will overcome them.

Once those dangers are overcome, and those who envied their success have been destroyed, such men begin to be respected. From then on they remain powerful, secure, honored, and happy.

To these great examples I want to add a lesser one. It still bears some resemblance to them, and I want it to stand for all cases of this kind. It is Hiero of Syracuse.

Hiero rose from private life to become Prince of Syracuse. He, too, owed nothing to fortune except opportunity. The Syracusans, being oppressed, chose him as their military commander, and he was later rewarded by being made their prince.

Even as a private citizen, he had such great ability that one writer said of him that he lacked nothing to be a king except a kingdom.

Hiero abolished the old army and organized a new one. He gave up old alliances and made new ones. Because he had soldiers and allies of his own, he had foundations on which he could build any structure he chose. So although he endured great trouble in acquiring his state, he had little trouble keeping it.

CHAPTER VII. CONCERNING NEW PRINCIPALITIES WHICH ARE ACQUIRED EITHER BY THE ARMS OF OTHERS OR BY GOOD FORTUNE

People who rise from private life to become princes purely through good fortune have little trouble getting to the top, but a great deal of trouble staying there. They meet no difficulties on the way up, because they seem to fly. Their difficulties begin once they reach the summit.

This group includes those who are given a state, either for money or as a favor from the person who grants it. This happened to many in Greece, in the cities of Ionia and the Hellespont. Darius made men princes there so that they would hold those cities for his own security and glory. The same is true of the emperors who rose from private citizens to the throne by bribing the soldiers.

Such rulers rest on nothing but the goodwill and the fortune of whoever raised them up. Those are two of the most changeable and unstable things there are.

They also lack the knowledge their position requires. Unless they are men of great worth and ability, we cannot reasonably expect them to know how to command, since they have always lived as private persons. Besides, they cannot hold their position, because they have no forces of their own that they can keep friendly and loyal.

States that rise unexpectedly are like everything else in nature that is born and grows quickly. They cannot set their foundations and connections firmly enough to keep the first storm from overthrowing them.

There is one exception, as I have said. Those who suddenly become princes may have so much ability that they know they must prepare at once to hold what fortune has thrown into their laps. They understand that they must lay afterward the foundations that other princes laid before coming to power.

I want to illustrate these two ways of becoming a prince, through ability or through fortune, with two examples from our own memory: Francesco Sforza and Cesare Borgia.

Francesco used the proper means and great ability to rise from private life to become Duke of Milan. What he had gained with a thousand anxieties, he kept with little trouble.

Cesare Borgia, whom the people called Duke Valentino, acquired his state while his father’s power was rising, and he lost it when that power declined. He lost it even though he had taken every measure and done everything a wise and able man ought to do. He had worked to root himself firmly in the states that the arms and fortune of others had given him.

As stated above, someone who has not laid his foundations first may, with great ability, lay them afterward. But the work will be troublesome for the architect and dangerous for the building.

If we consider all the steps the duke took, we will see that he laid solid foundations for his future power. I do not think it unnecessary to discuss them, because I know of no better instructions to give a new prince than the example of his actions. If his arrangements failed, that was not his fault. It was the result of fortune’s extraordinary and extreme malice.

Alexander the Sixth, wanting to make his son the duke great, faced many difficulties, both immediate and future. First, he could see no way to make him master of any state that did not already belong to the Church. And if he were willing to take territory from the Church, he knew that the Duke of Milan and the Venetians would not allow it, because Faenza and Rimini were already under Venetian protection.

He also saw that the armed forces of Italy, especially those that might have helped him, were in the hands of people who would fear any growth in the Pope’s power. These were the Orsini and the Colonnesi and their followers. He therefore needed to upset this arrangement and throw the powers into conflict, so that he could safely make himself master of part of their states.

This was easy, because he found the Venetians, moved by reasons of their own, inclined to bring the French back into Italy. He not only did not oppose this; he made it easier by dissolving King Louis’s earlier marriage. So the king came into Italy with the help of the Venetians and the consent of Alexander.

The king had no sooner reached Milan than the Pope obtained soldiers from him for the campaign in the Romagna. The Romagna surrendered on the strength of the king’s reputation.

Having acquired the Romagna and defeated the Colonnesi, the duke wanted to hold that territory and advance further. Two things stood in his way. One was that his forces did not seem loyal to him. The other was the goodwill of France.

He feared that the Orsini forces he was using would not stand by him. They might not only prevent him from winning more but might seize what he had already won. He feared the king might do the same.

He had a warning about the Orsini when, after taking Faenza, he attacked Bologna and saw how reluctantly they went into that attack. He learned the king’s mind when, after taking the Duchy of Urbino, he attacked Tuscany, and the king made him give up the undertaking. So the duke decided to depend no longer on the arms and the luck of others.

His first step was to weaken the Orsini and Colonnesi factions in Rome. He won over all their followers who were gentlemen and made them his own gentlemen. He paid them well and honored them with offices and commands according to their rank. Within a few months their attachment to the factions was destroyed and turned entirely toward the duke.

After this, having scattered the followers of the Colonna family, he waited for a chance to crush the Orsini. It soon came, and he used it well. The Orsini realized at last that the growing power of the duke and the Church meant their own ruin, and they called a meeting at the Magione in Perugia.

That meeting led to the rebellion at Urbino and the disturbances in the Romagna, which exposed the duke to endless dangers. He overcame them all with the help of the French.

Having restored his authority, he did not want to leave it at risk by trusting the French or any other outside forces. So he turned to cunning. He knew so well how to hide his intentions that the Orsini were reconciled with him through the mediation of Signor Pagolo.

The duke had taken care to secure Pagolo with every kind of attention, giving him money, clothing, and horses. The Orsini’s simplicity then delivered them into his hands at Sinigalia.

Having wiped out their leaders and turned their followers into his friends, the duke had laid fairly good foundations for his power. He held all of the Romagna and the Duchy of Urbino. And as the people began to appreciate their new prosperity, he won them all over to himself. Because this point deserves attention and imitation by others, I do not want to leave it out.

When the duke occupied the Romagna, he found it ruled by weak lords who plundered their subjects rather than governing them. They gave their people more reason for division than for unity, so the country was full of robbery, quarrels, and every kind of violence. Wanting to restore peace and obedience to authority, he judged it necessary to give the region a good governor.

He therefore promoted Messer Ramiro d’Orco, a swift and cruel man, and gave him the fullest powers. In a short time this man restored peace and unity with great success.

Afterward the duke judged it unwise to grant such excessive authority, since he had no doubt Ramiro would become hated. So he set up a court of justice in the province, under an excellent presiding judge, where every city had its own advocate.

He also knew that the earlier severity had caused some hatred against him. He wanted to clear himself in the people’s minds and win them over completely. So he set out to show that any cruelty that had occurred had not come from him, but from the harsh nature of his minister.

On this pretext he seized Ramiro. One morning he had him executed and left on the piazza at Cesena, with the block and a bloody knife beside him. The savagery of this spectacle left the people at once satisfied and terrified.

But let us return to where we started. The duke now found himself powerful enough, and partly secure against immediate dangers, because he had armed himself in his own way. He had also largely crushed the nearby forces that could harm him if he wanted to continue his conquests.

Next he had to consider France. He knew that the king, who had realized his mistake too late, would not support him.

From then on he began to look for new alliances and to play for time with France during its expedition toward the kingdom of Naples against the Spaniards, who were besieging Gaeta. His intention was to secure himself against the French, and he would soon have done so if Alexander had lived.

That was how he handled the situation at hand. Looking to the future, his first fear was that a new head of the Church might be unfriendly to him and might try to take away what Alexander had given him. So he decided to act in four ways:

• First, by wiping out the families of the lords he had dispossessed, so that the new Pope could not use them as a pretext.
• Second, by winning over all the gentlemen of Rome, so that with their help he could keep the Pope in check, as already noted.
• Third, by bringing the College of Cardinals more over to his side.
• Fourth, by gaining so much power before the Pope died that he could resist the first blow by his own means.

By the time Alexander died, he had accomplished three of these four. 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 largest party in the College.

As for new acquisitions, he intended to become master of Tuscany. He already held Perugia and Piombino, and Pisa was under his protection. He no longer had to worry about France, because the Spaniards had already driven the French out of the kingdom of Naples. As a result, both sides were forced to buy his goodwill. So he swooped down on Pisa.

After this, Lucca and Siena gave in at once, partly from hatred and partly from fear of the Florentines. The Florentines would have had no remedy if he had continued to prosper as he was prospering in the year Alexander died.

He had gained so much power and reputation that he would have stood on his own. He would no longer have depended on the luck and forces of others, but only on his own power and ability.

But Alexander died five years after the duke first drew his sword. He left him with only the state of the Romagna secured and everything else up in the air. The duke was caught between two very powerful hostile armies, and he himself was mortally ill.

Yet the duke had such boldness and ability, and understood so well how men are won or lost, and had laid such firm foundations in so short a time, that he would have overcome every difficulty if those armies had not been on his back, or if he had been in good health.

His foundations were clearly good. The Romagna waited for him for more than a month. In Rome, though only half alive, he remained safe. The Baglioni, the Vitelli, and the Orsini could come to Rome, but they could do nothing against him. If he could not make the man he wanted Pope, he could at least prevent the election of the one he did not want.

Had he been in good health when Alexander died, everything would have gone differently for him. On the day Julius the Second was elected, he told me that he had thought of everything that might happen at his father’s death and had provided a remedy for all of it. The one thing he had never anticipated was that, when the death came, he himself would be on the point of dying.

When I recall all the duke’s actions, I do not know how to blame him. Instead, as I have said, it seems that I should hold him up for imitation by everyone who rises to power through the fortune or arms of others.

He had a lofty spirit and far-reaching aims, and he could not have conducted himself any other way. Only the shortness of Alexander’s life and his own illness defeated his plans.

A new prince may consider it necessary:

• to secure himself in his new principality;
• to win friends;
• to overcome others by force or by fraud;
• to make himself loved and feared by the people;
• to be followed and respected by his soldiers.

He may also consider it necessary:

• to wipe out those who have the power or reason to harm him;
• to replace the old order of things with a new one;
• to be severe and gracious, magnanimous and generous;
• to destroy a disloyal army and create a new one;
• to keep up friendships with kings and princes in such a way that they must help him eagerly and think carefully before offending him.

Whoever considers these things necessary cannot find a more vivid example than the actions of this man.

The duke can be blamed for only one thing: the election of Julius II, in which he made a bad choice. As I have said, even if he could not make a Pope of his own choosing, he could still have prevented anyone else from becoming Pope. He should never have agreed to the election of any cardinal whom he had injured, or who would have reason to fear him once that cardinal became pontiff. Men harm others either out of fear or out of hatred.

Among those he had injured were San Pietro ad Vincula, Colonna, San Giorgio, and Ascanio. All the others, on becoming Pope, would have had reason to fear him, with two exceptions: Rouen and the Spaniards. The Spaniards were bound to him by family ties and obligations. Rouen had power of his own, because he had the kingdom of France behind him.

The duke’s first priority, therefore, should have been to make a Spaniard Pope. Failing that, he should have agreed to Rouen, and not to San Pietro ad Vincula. Anyone who believes that new favors make great men forget old injuries is mistaken. The duke chose badly, and that choice caused his final ruin.

CHAPTER VIII. CONCERNING THOSE WHO HAVE OBTAINED A PRINCIPALITY BY WICKEDNESS

A private citizen may become a prince in two further ways, and neither can be credited entirely to fortune or to ability. I must not pass over them in silence, even though one of them could be treated more fully in a discussion of republics.

In the first, a person rises to power by wicked or criminal means. In the second, a private citizen becomes prince of his country through the favor of his fellow citizens.

I will illustrate the first method with two examples, one ancient and one modern. I will not go further into the subject, because I believe these two examples are enough for anyone who may be forced to follow them.

Agathocles the Sicilian became King of Syracuse, and he started not merely as a private citizen but from a low and humble position. He was the son of a potter. Through every change in his fortunes, he led a disgraceful life.

Yet he combined his crimes with such strength of mind and body that, once he took up a military career, he rose through its ranks to become Praetor of Syracuse, one of the city’s chief officials.

Once established in that office, he deliberately decided to make himself prince. He wanted to hold by force, owing nothing to anyone, the power that others had granted him by consent. To this end, he reached an understanding with Amilcar the Carthaginian, who was then fighting in Sicily with his army.

One morning Agathocles assembled the people and the senate of Syracuse, as if he needed to discuss public business with them. At a prearranged signal, his soldiers killed all the senators and the richest citizens. With these men dead, he seized and held power over the city without any civil unrest.

The Carthaginians later defeated him twice and finally besieged him. Even so, he not only defended his city but also left part of his army to guard it while he invaded Africa with the rest. In a short time he forced the Carthaginians to lift the siege of Syracuse.

The Carthaginians, reduced to desperate straits, were forced to make terms with Agathocles. They left Sicily to him and had to be content with holding Africa.

Anyone who examines this man’s actions and abilities will find little or nothing that can be attributed to fortune. As shown above, he did not rise through anyone’s favor. He climbed step by step through the military profession, winning each step through countless difficulties and dangers, and then boldly holding his position through many further risks.

Yet it cannot be called ability to murder one’s fellow citizens, betray one’s friends, and live without loyalty, mercy, or religion. Such methods may win power, but not glory.

Still, consider Agathocles’ courage in entering and escaping dangers, and his greatness of spirit in enduring and overcoming hardship. Judged on these alone, there is no reason he should rank below the most distinguished commanders.

Nevertheless, his savage cruelty, inhumanity, and endless crimes do not allow him to be honored among the most excellent men. What he achieved cannot be attributed either to fortune or to ability.

In our own time, during the reign of Pope Alexander VI, there was Oliverotto da Fermo. He had been orphaned many years earlier and was raised by his maternal uncle, Giovanni Fogliani.

While still very young, Oliverotto was sent to fight under Pagolo Vitelli, so that training under such discipline might help him reach a high rank in the military profession.

After Pagolo died, Oliverotto served under his brother Vitellozzo. He was quick-witted and vigorous in body and mind, and in a very short time he became the leading man in his profession.

But serving under others seemed beneath him. So he decided to seize Fermo with the help of the Vitelli family and of certain citizens of Fermo, men who preferred their country’s servitude to its liberty.

He wrote to Giovanni Fogliani that, having been away from home for many years, he wanted to visit his uncle and his city and to see something of his inheritance. He said he had worked for nothing except honor.

Even so, he wanted the citizens to see that he had not wasted his time. He therefore wished to arrive in an honorable manner, accompanied by one hundred horsemen, his friends and followers.

He asked Giovanni to arrange for the people of Fermo to receive him with honor. This, he said, would do credit not only to himself but also to Giovanni, who had raised him.

Giovanni neglected none of the courtesies owed to his nephew. He had the people of Fermo receive him with honor and lodged him in his own house.

Oliverotto spent several days there making the arrangements his wicked plan required. Then he held a formal banquet and invited Giovanni Fogliani and the leading men of Fermo.

When the meal and the other customary entertainments were over, Oliverotto skillfully turned the conversation to serious matters. He spoke of the greatness of Pope Alexander and his son Cesare, and of their enterprises. Giovanni and the others replied.

Oliverotto immediately rose, saying such matters should be discussed somewhere more private, and withdrew to another room. Giovanni and the other citizens followed him. No sooner had they sat down than soldiers came out of hiding places and killed Giovanni and all the rest.

After these murders, Oliverotto mounted his horse, rode up and down the town, and besieged the chief magistrate in the palace. The frightened people were forced to obey him and to form a government, with Oliverotto as its prince.

He killed every discontented person who was able to harm him. He strengthened his position with new civil and military regulations.

As a result, within the single year he held power, he was not only secure in the city of Fermo but had become a threat to all his neighbors.

Removing him would have been as difficult as removing Agathocles, had he not let himself be outwitted by Cesare Borgia. As described earlier, Borgia captured him at Sinigalia, together with the Orsini and the Vitelli.

So, one year after committing this parricide, the murder of the uncle who had raised him, Oliverotto was strangled. With him died Vitellozzo, whom he had taken as his master in both courage and wickedness.

Some may wonder how Agathocles and men like him, after endless betrayals and cruelties, could live securely in their own countries for a long time and defend themselves against foreign enemies, without ever being conspired against by their own citizens.

After all, many others have never been able to hold power through cruelty even in peaceful times, let alone in the uncertain times of war.

I believe the difference lies in whether harsh measures are used badly or well. They may be called well used, if one can speak well of evil, when they are carried out all at once, out of necessity for one’s own security.

Afterward they are not continued, unless they can be turned to the benefit of the subjects.

Harsh measures are badly used when they start out few but multiply over time instead of decreasing.

Those who follow the first approach can, with the help of God or of men, make their rule somewhat easier to bear, as Agathocles did. Those who follow the second cannot possibly keep their power.

It follows that a person seizing a state should carefully consider all the injuries he will need to inflict. He should inflict them all at once, so that he does not have to repeat them every day.

By not keeping people constantly unsettled, he will be able to reassure them and win them over with benefits.

Anyone who acts otherwise, whether out of timidity or bad advice, must always keep the knife in his hand. He cannot rely on his subjects, and they cannot become attached to him, because they keep suffering fresh and repeated wrongs.

Injuries should be inflicted all at once, so that, being tasted less, they cause less resentment. Benefits should be given little by little, so that their taste lasts longer.

Above all, a prince should live among his people in such a way that no unexpected event, whether good or bad, forces him to change course.

If the need for change arises in troubled times, it is too late for harsh measures. Mild ones will not help you either, because people will think they were forced out of you, and no one will feel any obligation to you for them.

CHAPTER IX. CONCERNING A CIVIL PRINCIPALITY

I now turn to the other case. Here a leading citizen becomes the prince of his country, not through wickedness or intolerable violence, but through the support of his fellow citizens. This may be called a civil principality. To gain it, a man does not need exceptional ability or exceptional luck. What he needs is a fortunate kind of shrewdness.

I say, then, that such a principality is won either through the support of the people or through the support of the nobles. Every city contains these two distinct parties. The people do not wish to be ruled or oppressed by the nobles, while the nobles wish to rule and oppress the people.

These two opposing desires produce one of three results in a city: a principality, self-government, or anarchy.

A principality is created by either the people or the nobles, depending on which side has the opportunity. When the nobles see that they cannot hold out against the people, they begin to build up the reputation of one of their own. They make him prince so that, under his protection, they can freely pursue their ambitions.

The people act in the same way. When they find that they cannot resist the nobles, they build up the reputation of one of their own and make him prince, so that his authority will defend them.

A man who gains sovereignty with the help of the nobles has a harder time keeping it than one who gains it with the help of the people. The first finds himself surrounded by many men who consider themselves his equals. Because of this, he can neither command them nor manage them as he would like.

But a man who reaches sovereignty through the people’s support stands alone. Around him there are none, or very few, who are not prepared to obey him.

There is a further difference. A prince cannot satisfy the nobles by fair dealing without injuring others, but he can satisfy the people. The people’s aim is more just than that of the nobles. The nobles wish to oppress, while the people wish only not to be oppressed.

It must also be added that a prince can never make himself safe against a hostile people, because they are too many. Against the nobles he can make himself safe, because they are few.

The worst a prince can expect from a hostile people is that they will abandon him. From hostile nobles, he must fear not only abandonment but also open revolt. In such matters the nobles are more far-sighted and cunning. They always act in time to save themselves and to win favor from whoever they expect to come out on top.

Moreover, a prince must always live with the same people, but he can manage perfectly well without the same nobles. He can make and unmake them every day, giving them authority or taking it away whenever he pleases.

To make this point clearer, I say that the nobles should be judged mainly in two ways. Either they conduct themselves in a way that ties them completely to your fortunes, or they do not. Those who tie themselves to you, and are not greedy, should be honored and loved.

Those who do not tie themselves to you can be handled in two ways. Some hold back out of timidity and a natural lack of courage. You should make use of these men, especially those who give good advice. You honor them when things go well, and you have nothing to fear from them when things go badly.

But when nobles avoid tying themselves to you for the sake of their own ambitions, this is a sign that they are thinking more about themselves than about you. A prince should guard against such men and fear them as if they were open enemies, because in hard times they always help to ruin him.

Therefore, a man who becomes prince through the people’s support should keep them friendly. He can do this easily, since they ask only that he not oppress them.

But a man who becomes prince through the nobles’ support, against the will of the people, should above all try to win the people over. He can do this easily if he takes them under his protection.

When men receive good treatment from someone they expected to harm them, they become more strongly attached to their benefactor. As a result, the people quickly become more devoted to such a prince than if he had come to power through their own support.

A prince can win the people’s affection in many ways. But these ways change with circumstances, so no fixed rules can be given, and I leave them aside. I repeat, however, that a prince must have the people on his side. Otherwise he has no security when misfortune comes.

Nabis, Prince of the Spartans, withstood an attack by all of Greece and by a victorious Roman army, and he defended both his country and his government against them. To overcome this danger, he needed only to secure himself against a few. But that would not have been enough if the people had been hostile to him.

Let no one challenge this claim with the worn-out proverb, “He who builds on the people builds on mud.” That saying is true when a private citizen makes the people his foundation and convinces himself that they will rescue him when he is oppressed by his enemies or by the magistrates. In that case he will very often find himself deceived, as happened to the Gracchi in Rome and to Messer Giorgio Scali in Florence.

But consider a prince who has established himself in the way I have described. He can command, and he is a man of courage who does not lose heart in adversity. He does not lack the other necessary qualities, and through his resolution and energy he keeps the whole people encouraged. Such a prince will never find himself deceived by them, and it will be clear that he has laid his foundations well.

These principalities are in danger when they are moving from a civil form of government to an absolute one. Such princes rule either in person or through magistrates.

When they rule through magistrates, their government is weaker and less secure. It depends entirely on the goodwill of the citizens appointed to those offices. Especially in troubled times, these men can easily destroy the government, either by plotting or by open defiance.

In the middle of such disorder, the prince has no opportunity to take absolute authority. The citizens and subjects are used to receiving orders from the magistrates, so they are not inclined to obey him amid the confusion. And in uncertain times, there will always be a shortage of men he can trust.

Such a prince cannot rely on what he sees in quiet times, when the citizens need the state. Then everyone agrees with him and everyone makes promises. When death is far away, they all say they would die for him. But in troubled times, when the state needs its citizens, he finds only a few.

This test is all the more dangerous because it can be made only once. A wise prince should therefore follow a course that ensures his citizens will always, in every kind of circumstance, need the state and need him. Then he will always find them loyal.

CHAPTER X. CONCERNING THE WAY IN WHICH THE STRENGTH OF ALL PRINCIPALITIES OUGHT TO BE MEASURED

In examining the character of these principalities, we need to consider another point. Does a prince have enough power to stand on his own resources when he needs to? Or does he always depend on help from others?

To make this clear, I will define both cases. I consider a prince able to support himself if he has enough men or money to raise a sufficient army and fight a battle against anyone who comes to attack him. I consider a prince always dependent on others if he cannot meet the enemy in the open field and must instead defend himself by sheltering behind walls.

The first case has already been discussed, and we will return to it if the subject comes up again. About the second case, there is nothing to say except to urge such princes to supply and fortify their towns. They should not, under any circumstances, try to defend the surrounding countryside.

A prince who fortifies his town well, and who has handled his subjects’ other concerns in the way described above (and which will often be repeated), will never be attacked without great caution. Men always shy away from undertakings where they can see the difficulties. And attacking someone whose town is well fortified, and who is not hated by his people, will clearly not be easy.

The cities of Germany are completely free. They control very little territory around them, and they obey the emperor only when it suits them. They do not fear him or any other power nearby.

Their fortifications explain this. Everyone believes that taking such cities by assault would be slow and difficult. They have proper ditches and walls, and enough artillery. They also always keep enough food, drink, and fuel in public storehouses to last a full year.

Beyond this, they have a way to keep the common people quiet without cost to the state. They always have the means to give the people work in the trades that are the life and strength of the city, the occupations that support the population. They also hold military training in high regard and have many regulations to keep it going.

A prince who has a strong city, and who has not made himself hated, will therefore not be attacked. If anyone does attack him, the attacker will only be driven off in disgrace. Besides, the affairs of this world change so often that it is almost impossible to keep an army in the field for a whole year without something interfering.

Someone might object: “If the people own property outside the city and watch it burn, they will lose patience. The long siege and their own self-interest will make them forget their prince.”

I answer that a powerful and courageous prince will overcome all such difficulties. At one moment he will give his subjects hope that the hardship will not last long. At another, he will make them fear the enemy’s cruelty. Meanwhile, he will skillfully protect himself against any subjects who seem too bold.

Further, an enemy will naturally burn and ruin the countryside as soon as he arrives, while the people’s spirits are still hot and eager for the defense. This is all the more reason for the prince not to hesitate.

After some time, when spirits have cooled, the damage has already been done. The losses have been suffered, and nothing can undo them. The people are then even more ready to unite with their prince. Because their houses have been burnt and their possessions ruined in his defense, he now seems to be in their debt.

It is human nature to be bound by the benefits we give as much as by those we receive. So if everything is carefully considered, a wise prince will not find it hard to keep his citizens steadfast from the beginning of a siege to the end, as long as he does not fail to support and defend them.

CHAPTER XI. CONCERNING ECCLESIASTICAL PRINCIPALITIES

It now remains only to speak of ecclesiastical principalities, the states ruled by the Church. With these, all the difficulties come before a ruler takes possession. They are acquired either by ability or by good fortune, but they can be held without either one.

They are sustained by the ancient institutions of religion. These institutions are so powerful, and of such a character, that the principalities can be kept no matter how their princes behave or live.

These princes alone have states and do not defend them. They have subjects and do not govern them. Yet their states, though unguarded, are not taken from them. Their subjects, though ungoverned, do not mind, and they have neither the wish nor the ability to break away. Only principalities of this kind are secure and happy.

But they are upheld by powers that the human mind cannot reach, so I shall say no more about them. Since they are raised up and maintained by God, it would be presumptuous and rash of anyone to discuss them.

Nevertheless, someone might ask me how the Church has come to hold such great temporal power, meaning political and worldly power. Before Alexander’s time, the Italian powers thought very little of that temporal power. This was true not only of the major rulers, but of every baron and lord, however minor.

Yet now a king of France trembles before it. The Church has been able to drive him out of Italy and to ruin the Venetians. Although the explanation may be quite obvious, it does not seem pointless to me to recall some of it here.

Before Charles, King of France, invaded Italy, the country was under the control of the Pope, the Venetians, the King of Naples, the Duke of Milan, and the Florentines. These powers had two main concerns. The first was that no foreigner should enter Italy with an army. The second was that none of them should seize more territory.

The powers that caused the most anxiety were the Pope and the Venetians. Restraining the Venetians required all the others to unite, as they had done to defend Ferrara.

To keep the Pope down, they made use of the Roman barons. These barons were split into two factions, the Orsini and the Colonna, so they always had an excuse for fighting. Standing armed under the Pope’s very eyes, they kept the papacy weak and powerless.

Sometimes a courageous pope might arise, such as Sixtus, yet neither luck nor wisdom could free him from these troubles. A pope’s short reign was another source of weakness. In ten years, the average length of a pope’s reign, he could barely manage to bring down one of the factions.

If, so to speak, one pope nearly destroyed the Colonna, another would come along who was hostile to the Orsini. He would support the Colonna, their opponents, yet he would not have time to ruin the Orsini. This was why the pope’s temporal power was held in little regard in Italy.

Then Alexander the Sixth came to power. Of all the popes there have ever been, he showed most clearly how far a pope could prevail with both money and armed force. Working through Duke Valentino, and taking advantage of the French invasion, he accomplished everything I discussed earlier when describing the duke’s actions.

His aim was to make the duke great, not the Church. Nevertheless, what he did added to the Church’s greatness. After his death and the duke’s downfall, the Church inherited the fruits of all his labors.

Pope Julius came next and found the Church strong. It held all of the Romagna, the Roman barons had been reduced to impotence, and Alexander’s harsh punishments had wiped out their factions. Julius also found the way open to accumulate money by methods that had never been used before Alexander’s time.

Julius not only continued these practices but improved on them. He set out to gain Bologna, to ruin the Venetians, and to drive the French out of Italy. All of these undertakings succeeded. This was all the more to his credit because he did everything to strengthen the Church rather than any private person.

He also kept the Orsini and Colonna factions within the limits in which he found them. Some among them were inclined to stir up trouble, but he held two things firmly in place. The first was the greatness of the Church, which frightened them. The second was that he did not allow them to have cardinals of their own, since such cardinals caused the disorders among them.

Whenever these factions have their own cardinals, they do not stay quiet for long. The cardinals foster factions both inside Rome and outside it, and the barons are forced to back them. In this way, the ambitions of churchmen give rise to disorder and unrest among the barons.

For these reasons, his Holiness Pope Leo found the papacy extremely powerful. Others made it great by force of arms. It is to be hoped that he will make it still greater and more revered through his goodness and his countless other virtues.

CHAPTER XII. HOW MANY KINDS OF SOLDIERY THERE ARE, AND CONCERNING MERCENARIES

I have now discussed in detail the characteristics of the kinds of principalities I proposed to examine at the beginning. I have considered to some extent the reasons they are good or bad, and I have shown the methods many people have used to acquire and hold them.

What remains is to discuss, in general terms, the means of attack and defense available to each of them.

We have seen above how necessary it is for a prince to lay his foundations well; otherwise he will inevitably be ruined. The chief foundations of all states, whether new, old, or composite, are good laws and good arms. There cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, and where it is well armed, good laws follow. I will therefore leave laws aside and speak about arms.

I say, then, that the forces a prince uses to defend his state are either his own, or else mercenaries, auxiliaries, or a mixture of these. Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous. A prince who bases his state on them will be neither secure nor safe.

Such troops are disunited, ambitious, undisciplined, and disloyal. They are bold among friends and cowardly in front of enemies. They neither fear God nor keep faith with men. Your ruin is postponed only as long as an attack is postponed: in peacetime they rob you, and in wartime the enemy does.

The reason is that nothing keeps them in the field except a small wage, and that is not enough to make them willing to die for you. They are happy to be your soldiers as long as you are not at war. When war comes, they either desert or run from the enemy.

I could prove this without much trouble. The ruin of Italy has been caused by nothing other than her reliance on mercenaries for many years. They once made some show and seemed brave among themselves, but when foreign armies arrived, they revealed what they really were.

That is how Charles, King of France, was able to take Italy “with chalk in hand,” with no more effort than chalking the doors of the houses where his troops would be lodged. The man who told us that our sins were the cause spoke the truth. But they were not the sins he imagined; they were the ones I have described. And because they were the sins of princes, the princes have also paid the penalty.

I want to show further how unfortunate these forces are. Mercenary captains are either capable men or they are not. If they are capable, you cannot trust them, because they always seek their own greatness. They do this either by oppressing you, their employer, or by oppressing others against your wishes. If the captain is not skilled, you are ruined in the ordinary way.

Someone might object that anyone with weapons will behave the same way, whether a mercenary or not. I reply that when a prince or a republic must go to war, the prince should go in person and act as captain himself.

A republic must send its own citizens. If the man it sends proves unsatisfactory, it should recall him. If he proves worthy, it should restrain him by its laws so that he stays within the bounds of his command.

Experience shows that princes and republics relying on their own forces make the greatest progress, while mercenaries do nothing but harm. It is also harder for one of its own citizens to seize control of a republic armed with its own forces than of one armed with foreign forces. Rome and Sparta remained armed and free for many centuries. The Swiss are thoroughly armed and entirely free.

Among ancient mercenaries, the Carthaginians offer an example. After their first war with the Romans, they were oppressed by their mercenary soldiers, even though their captains were Carthaginian citizens. After the death of Epaminondas, the Thebans made Philip of Macedon captain of their soldiers, and after his victory he took away their liberty.

When Duke Filippo died, the Milanese hired Francesco Sforza to fight the Venetians. After defeating the enemy at Caravaggio, he allied himself with them to crush the Milanese, his own employers.

His father, Sforza, had been hired by Queen Johanna of Naples, but he abandoned her and left her defenseless. She was forced to throw herself into the arms of the King of Aragon to save her kingdom.

It may be objected that the Venetians and Florentines once expanded their territory with these forces, and yet their captains did not make themselves princes but defended them instead. I reply that the Florentines were simply favored by luck. Of the able captains they might have feared, some did not win victories, some faced opposition, and others turned their ambitions elsewhere.

One who did not win was Giovanni Acuto. Since he never won, his loyalty cannot be proved. But everyone will admit that if he had won, the Florentines would have been at his mercy.

Sforza always had the Bracceschi against him, so the two kept watch on each other. Francesco turned his ambition toward Lombardy, and Braccio turned his against the Church and the kingdom of Naples.

But let us turn to something that happened only a short while ago. The Florentines appointed Pagolo Vitelli as their captain. He was a very prudent man who had risen from private life to the greatest renown.

If he had taken Pisa, no one can deny that the Florentines would have had to stay on good terms with him. If he became the soldier of their enemies, they would have had no means of resisting him. If they kept him, they would have had to obey him.

If we consider the Venetians’ achievements, we see that they acted safely and gloriously as long as they fought their wars with their own men. Then, with armed nobles and common people, they fought bravely. That was before they turned to conquests on land. Once they began fighting on land, they abandoned this strength and followed the custom of Italy.

At the start of their expansion on land, they had little to fear from their captains, because they held little territory and had a great reputation. But as they expanded, under Carmignuola, they had a taste of this mistake.

They had found him a very brave man, since under his leadership they defeated the Duke of Milan. On the other hand, they saw how half-hearted he was in the war. They feared they would win no more victories under him, yet they were neither willing nor able to let him go. So, to avoid losing what they had acquired, they were forced to secure themselves by murdering him.

Afterward their captains were men like Bartolomeo da Bergamo, Roberto da San Severino, the Count of Pitigliano, and others of that kind. Under them, the Venetians had to fear losses rather than hope for gains. This is what later happened at Vaila, where in a single battle they lost what they had gained with so much effort over eight hundred years.

With such forces, conquests come slowly, late, and in small measure, while losses come suddenly and on an astonishing scale.

These examples have brought me to Italy, which has been ruled by mercenaries for many years. I want to discuss them more seriously, so that once their origin and development have been seen, people may be better prepared to counter them.

You must understand that in recent times the Empire’s authority came to be rejected in Italy, the Pope gained more temporal power, and Italy was divided into more states.

This happened because many of the great cities took up arms against their nobles. These nobles had formerly enjoyed the emperor’s favor and had been oppressing the cities. The Church supported the cities in order to gain authority in temporal affairs. In many other cities, citizens made themselves princes.

As a result, Italy fell partly into the hands of the Church and partly into the hands of republics. The Church consisted of priests, and the republics of citizens unaccustomed to arms. So both began to hire foreigners.

The first to bring fame to this kind of soldiering was Alberigo da Conio, from Romagna. From his school came, among others, Braccio and Sforza, who in their day were the arbiters of Italy.

After them came all the other captains who have directed Italy’s armies up to the present. The outcome of all their valor is that Italy has been overrun by Charles, plundered by Louis, ravaged by Ferdinand, and insulted by the Swiss.

Their first guiding principle was to lower the standing of infantry in order to raise their own. They lived on their pay and had no territory, so they could not support many soldiers, and a small infantry force gave them no authority. They therefore turned to cavalry, since a moderate number of horsemen was enough to keep them both supported and honored.

Matters reached the point where, in an army of twenty thousand soldiers, fewer than two thousand were foot soldiers.

Beyond this, they used every device to spare themselves and their soldiers fatigue and danger. They did not kill in battle; instead they took prisoners and released them without ransom.

They did not attack towns at night, and town garrisons did not attack their camps at night. They did not surround their camps with stockades or ditches, and they did not campaign in winter.

Their military rules permitted all these things, which they devised, as I have said, to avoid both fatigue and danger. In this way they have brought Italy to slavery and contempt.

CHAPTER XIII. CONCERNING AUXILIARIES, MIXED SOLDIERY, AND ONE’S OWN

Auxiliaries are the other kind of useless force. They are what you get when you call in a powerful ruler to come with his army to help and defend you.

Pope Julius did this very recently. In his campaign against Ferrara, his mercenaries performed badly, so he turned to auxiliaries. He made an agreement with Ferdinand, King of Spain, to assist him with men and weapons.

Such forces may be capable and effective in themselves. But for the ruler who calls them in, they are always a disadvantage. If they lose, he is ruined. If they win, he becomes their prisoner.

Ancient histories are full of examples of this. Still, I do not want to pass over this recent case of Pope Julius the Second, because its danger is impossible to miss. To gain Ferrara, he placed himself entirely in the hands of a foreign power.

His good luck, however, produced a third outcome, so he did not suffer the consequences of his rash choice. His auxiliaries were defeated at Ravenna. Then the Swiss rose up and drove out the victors, against everyone’s expectations, including his own.

As a result, he did not become the prisoner of his enemies, because they had fled. Nor did he become the prisoner of his auxiliaries, because the victory had been won by forces other than theirs.

The Florentines, having no army of their own, brought in ten thousand French soldiers to capture Pisa. In doing so, they put themselves in greater danger than at any other point in their troubles.

The Emperor of Constantinople, wanting to resist his neighbors, brought ten thousand Turks into Greece. When the war was over, the Turks refused to leave. This was the beginning of Greece’s subjection to the infidels.

So a ruler who has no wish to win should use auxiliaries. They are far more dangerous than mercenaries, because with them your ruin is already prepared. Auxiliaries are a single, united body, and they all obey someone else.

Mercenaries are different. Even after they have won, they need more time and a better opportunity to harm you. They are not one unified body. You recruited them and you pay them. And if you appoint an outsider as their commander, he cannot immediately gain enough authority over them to turn them against you.

In short, with mercenaries the greatest danger is their cowardice. With auxiliaries it is their courage.

For this reason, the wise prince has always avoided these forces and relied on his own. He has preferred to lose with his own troops rather than win with someone else’s, because he does not consider a victory won with others’ forces to be a real victory.

I will never hesitate to cite Cesare Borgia and what he did. The duke entered the Romagna with auxiliaries, bringing only French soldiers, and with them he captured Imola and Forlì.

Later, he judged these forces unreliable and turned to mercenaries, seeing less danger in them. He hired the Orsini and the Vitelli. Once he had worked with them, however, he found them unreliable, disloyal, and dangerous, so he destroyed them and turned to his own men.

The difference between these kinds of forces becomes clear when you compare the duke’s reputation at each stage. Consider his standing when he had the French, then when he had the Orsini and Vitelli, and finally when he relied on his own soldiers.

He could always count on their loyalty, and he found that it kept growing. He was never more respected than when everyone could see that he was in complete command of his own forces.

I did not intend to go beyond recent Italian examples. But I do not want to leave out Hiero of Syracuse, since he is one of the men I mentioned earlier.

As I said before, the Syracusans made him commander of their army. He soon realized that a mercenary force, organized like our Italian condottieri, was useless. He felt he could neither keep them nor dismiss them, so he had them all cut to pieces. After that, he made war with his own forces rather than with foreign troops.

I also want to recall an example from the Old Testament that applies here. David offered to fight Goliath, the Philistine champion, on Saul’s behalf. To give him courage, Saul armed him with his own weapons and armor.

As soon as David had them on, he rejected them. He said he could not use them and that he wanted to face the enemy with his sling and his knife.

In short, other people’s arms either fall off your back, weigh you down, or tie you up.

Charles the Seventh, the father of King Louis the Eleventh, freed France from the English through good fortune and ability. He recognized that he needed forces of his own, so he issued regulations in his kingdom establishing men-at-arms and infantry.

Later his son, King Louis, abolished the infantry and began hiring Swiss soldiers. This mistake, followed by others, has become a source of danger to that kingdom, as we can now see.

By raising the reputation of the Swiss, Louis completely undermined the value of his own forces. He destroyed the infantry entirely. He also made his men-at-arms dependent on others. They have grown so used to fighting alongside the Swiss that they no longer seem able to win without them.

As a result, the French cannot stand up to the Swiss, and without the Swiss they do not do well against anyone else.

The French armies have therefore become mixed: partly mercenary and partly national. These two kinds of forces together are much better than mercenaries alone or auxiliaries alone, but much worse than one’s own forces.

This example proves the point. The kingdom of France would be unconquerable if Charles’s system had been expanded or even maintained.

But human wisdom is limited. When people undertake something that looks good at first, they cannot see the poison hidden inside it. I made the same point earlier about wasting fevers.

So a ruler of a principality who cannot recognize dangers until they are already upon him is not truly wise. Few people are given this kind of foresight.

If we examine the first disaster to strike the Roman Empire, we will find that it began only when the Romans started enlisting the Goths. From that time, the strength of the Roman Empire began to decline, and all the courage that had made it great passed to others.

I conclude, therefore, that no principality is secure without its own forces. Without them, it depends entirely on luck, because it lacks the strength that would defend it in hard times.

Wise people have always held that nothing is as uncertain or unstable as fame or power that does not rest on its own strength.

One’s own forces are those made up of subjects, citizens, or dependents. All other forces are mercenaries or auxiliaries.

It will be easy to find the way to organize one’s own forces if one reflects on the rules I have set out. One should also consider how Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, and many republics and princes armed and organized themselves. I place my full confidence in those rules.

CHAPTER XIV. THAT WHICH CONCERNS A PRINCE ON THE SUBJECT OF THE ART OF WAR

A prince should have no other aim or thought, and should take up no other subject of study, than war and its rules and discipline. This is the only art that properly belongs to a ruler. Its power is so great that it not only keeps those who are born princes in their position, but often lets men rise from private life to that rank.

On the other hand, experience shows that princes who have thought more about comfort than about arms have lost their states. Neglecting this art is the first cause of losing a state, and mastering it is what allows you to acquire one.

Francesco Sforza, because he was a soldier, rose from private citizen to Duke of Milan. His sons, because they avoided the hardships and burdens of military life, fell from dukes to private citizens.

Being unarmed brings many evils, and one of them is that it makes you despised. This is one of the disgraces a prince must guard against, as I will show later.

There is no equality between the armed and the unarmed. It is unreasonable to expect an armed man to obey an unarmed one willingly, or for an unarmed man to be safe among armed servants. The armed man feels contempt, and the unarmed man feels suspicion, so the two cannot work well together.

For this reason, a prince who does not understand the art of war suffers, beyond the misfortunes already mentioned, a further one: his soldiers cannot respect him, and he cannot rely on them.

He should therefore never let the subject of war leave his thoughts. In peacetime he should devote himself to its practice even more than in war. He can do this in two ways: through action and through study.

In terms of action, he should above all keep his troops well organized and drilled. He should also hunt constantly. Hunting hardens his body to physical strain and teaches him about the land. He learns how mountains rise, how valleys open out, and how plains lie, and he comes to understand the nature of rivers and marshes. He should study all this with the greatest care.

This knowledge is useful in two ways. First, he learns his own country and is better able to defend it.

Second, once he knows and has observed that one region, he can easily understand any other he may later need to study. The hills, valleys, plains, rivers, and marshes of Tuscany, for example, resemble those of other countries. So by knowing the features of one country, a person can readily come to know others.

A prince who lacks this skill lacks the most essential quality a commander can have. It teaches him how to surprise the enemy, choose where to encamp, lead armies, draw up troops for battle, and besiege towns to his advantage.

Philopoemen, Prince of the Achaeans, has received many kinds of praise from writers. Among them, he is commended because in peacetime he thought of nothing but the rules of war.

When he was out in the countryside with friends, he would often stop and reason with them: “If the enemy were on that hill, and we found ourselves here with our army, which side would have the advantage? How could we best advance to meet him while keeping our ranks in order? If we wanted to retreat, how should we pursue?”

As they walked, he would lay out for them every situation that could happen to an army. He listened to their opinions and gave his own, backing it up with reasons.

Through these constant discussions, he ensured that in wartime no unexpected situation could ever arise that he did not know how to handle.

To exercise his mind, the prince should read history and study the actions of great men there. He should see how they conducted themselves in war and examine the causes of their victories and defeats, so that he can avoid the defeats and imitate the victories.

Above all, he should do what great men have done before him: take as a model someone who was praised and famous earlier, and keep that person’s achievements and deeds always in mind.

It is said that Alexander the Great imitated Achilles, Caesar imitated Alexander, and Scipio imitated Cyrus. Anyone who reads the life of Cyrus written by Xenophon will afterward recognize in the life of Scipio how much his glory came from that imitation. In self-restraint, approachability, kindness, and generosity, Scipio shaped himself according to what Xenophon had written about Cyrus.

A wise prince should follow rules like these. He should never sit idle in peaceful times, but should diligently build up his resources so that he can draw on them in adversity. Then, if fortune turns against him, she will find him ready to withstand her blows.

CHAPTER XV. CONCERNING THINGS FOR WHICH MEN, AND ESPECIALLY PRINCES, ARE PRAISED OR BLAMED

It remains now to consider how a prince ought to conduct himself toward his subjects and his friends. I know that many have already written on this subject, so I expect to be thought presumptuous for raising it again. I may seem even more presumptuous because, in discussing it, I will depart from the methods others have used.

My intention, however, is to write something useful to anyone who understands it. For that purpose, it seems more fitting to pursue the real truth of the matter than an imagined version of it. Many writers have pictured republics and principalities that no one has ever actually seen or known to exist.

The gap between how people actually live and how they ought to live is very wide. Anyone who neglects what is done in favor of what ought to be done will bring about his ruin sooner than his preservation. Among so many who are evil, a man who wants to live entirely up to his professions of virtue will soon meet with something that destroys him.

Hence a prince who wishes to hold on to his position must know how to do wrong, and must use that knowledge or refrain from using it as necessity requires.

So I will set aside imaginary notions about princes and discuss real ones. People speak of all men in terms of qualities that bring them either blame or praise. Princes stand out for these qualities most of all, because they are more highly placed.

Thus one man is reputed liberal, another miserly. I use “miserly” here in its Tuscan sense. In our language, an avaricious person is still one who wants to acquire things by robbery, while we call someone miserly who denies himself too much of the use of what is his own.

Similarly, one man is reputed generous, another rapacious; one cruel, another compassionate; one faithless, another faithful; one effeminate and cowardly, another bold and brave; one affable, another haughty; one lascivious, another chaste; one sincere, another cunning; one hard, another easygoing; one grave, another frivolous; one religious, another unbelieving; and so on.

I know everyone will admit that it would be most praiseworthy for a prince to display all of these qualities that are considered good. But human conditions do not allow anyone to possess them all completely, or to practice them all consistently.

A prince must therefore be prudent enough to avoid the disgrace of those vices that would cost him his state. He should also guard himself, if possible, against the vices that would not cost him his state. If that is not possible, he may give way to them with less hesitation.

Further, he need not trouble himself about incurring disgrace for those vices without which the state can be saved only with difficulty. If everything is carefully considered, some things that look like virtue will be found to ruin him if he follows them. Other things that look like vice will bring him security and prosperity if he follows them.

CHAPTER XVI. CONCERNING LIBERALITY AND MEANNESS

I begin, then, with the first of the qualities named above. It would be good to be known as generous. Yet generosity practiced in a way that does not earn you that reputation actually harms you.

If you are generous honestly and in the proper way, your generosity may go unnoticed. You will then still be accused of the opposite fault.

Anyone who wants to keep a reputation for generosity among people must therefore spare no form of lavish display. A prince inclined this way will use up all his wealth on such displays. In the end, if he wants to keep his name for generosity, he will be forced to place heavy burdens on his people. He will tax them and do everything he can to raise money.

This will soon make his subjects hate him. And once he becomes poor, no one will think much of him.

So his generosity has offended many people and rewarded only a few. As a result, the first difficulty that comes along shakes him, and the first danger puts him at risk. When he recognizes this and tries to pull back, he immediately earns the charge of being stingy.

A prince cannot practice the virtue of generosity in a way that people recognize without paying for it. If he is wise, then, he should not fear a reputation for stinginess.

Over time he will be held in higher regard than if he were generous. People will see that, because of his thrift, his income is sufficient. He can defend himself against any attack, and he can undertake ambitious projects without burdening his people.

The result is that he is generous toward everyone he does not take from, and they are countless. He is stingy only toward those he does not give to, and they are few.

In our own time, we have seen great things accomplished only by those considered stingy. The others have failed.

Pope Julius II used a reputation for generosity to help him win the papacy. Afterward, when he went to war against the King of France, he made no effort to keep that reputation up. He fought many wars without imposing any special tax on his subjects, because he paid the extra costs out of savings built up through long thrift.

The present King of Spain would not have undertaken so many campaigns, or won them, if he had been known as generous.

So a prince should care little about being called stingy, provided that he does not have to rob his subjects, that he can defend himself, that he does not become poor and despised, and that he is not forced to become greedy. Stinginess is one of those vices that allow him to govern.

Someone might object that Caesar won supreme power through generosity, and that many others have reached the highest positions by being generous and being seen that way. I answer that either you are already a prince, or you are on the way to becoming one.

In the first case, generosity is dangerous. In the second, it is very necessary to be seen as generous.

Caesar was one of those who wanted to become the leading man in Rome. But if he had lived on after achieving that, and had not cut back his spending, he would have destroyed his own rule.

Someone might reply that many princes have achieved great things with armies while being considered very generous. I answer that a prince spends either his own wealth and his subjects’ wealth, or else the wealth of others.

In the first case, he should be sparing. In the second, he should not miss any chance to be generous.

A prince who goes out with his army and supports it through plunder, looting, and extortion is handling what belongs to others. For him, this generosity is necessary. Without it, his soldiers would not follow him.

With what belongs neither to you nor to your subjects, you can be a free giver, as Cyrus, Caesar, and Alexander were. Squandering other people’s wealth does not damage your reputation. It adds to it. Only squandering your own wealth harms you.

Nothing uses itself up as quickly as generosity. Even as you practice it, you lose the means to continue. You then become either poor and despised, or, in trying to avoid poverty, greedy and hated.

Above all else, a prince must guard against being despised and hated, and generosity leads you to both.

It is therefore wiser to have a reputation for stinginess, which brings criticism without hatred, than to seek a reputation for generosity and be forced into a name for greed, which brings criticism together with hatred.

CHAPTER XVII. CONCERNING CRUELTY AND CLEMENCY, AND WHETHER IT IS BETTER TO BE LOVED THAN FEARED

Turning now to the other qualities listed earlier, I say that every prince should want to be considered merciful rather than cruel. Even so, he must be careful not to misuse his mercy.

Cesare Borgia was considered cruel. Yet his cruelty brought order to the Romagna, unified it, and restored it to peace and loyalty. Looked at properly, he will be seen to have been far more merciful than the people of Florence. To avoid a reputation for cruelty, they allowed Pistoia to be destroyed.

A prince, then, should not mind being called cruel, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal. By making a few examples, he will prove more merciful than rulers who, through too much mercy, allow disorder to take hold.

Disorder leads to murder and robbery, and these usually harm the whole people. The executions a prince orders, by contrast, affect only the individuals concerned.

Of all princes, the new prince cannot escape a reputation for cruelty, because new states are full of dangers. For this reason Virgil has Dido excuse the harshness of her rule on the grounds that her kingdom is new. She says:

“Res dura, et regni novitas me talia cogunt
Moliri, et late fines custode tueri.”

That is:

“Harsh necessity and the newness of my kingdom force me
To do such things, and to guard my borders far and wide.”

Still, a new prince should be slow to believe what he hears and slow to act. He should not show fear himself. Instead, he should proceed in a measured way, with prudence and humanity. Too much confidence would make him careless, and too much distrust would make him unbearable.

This raises a question: is it better to be loved than feared, or feared than loved? One might answer that a prince should want to be both. But since it is hard to combine the two in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of them must be given up.

The reason is that one can say this of people in general: they are ungrateful, fickle, deceitful, cowardly, and greedy. As long as you succeed, they are entirely yours. As I said earlier, they will offer you their blood, their property, their lives, and their children, so long as the need is far away. But when the need draws near, they turn against you.

A prince who relies entirely on their promises, and neglects other precautions, is ruined. Friendships bought with payment, rather than won through greatness and nobility of mind, may be earned, but they are not secured. When the time of need comes, they cannot be counted on.

People also hesitate less to offend someone they love than someone they fear. Love is held in place by a bond of obligation. Because people are base, they break that bond whenever it serves their interest. Fear, however, holds them through dread of punishment, and that never fails.

Even so, a prince should make himself feared in such a way that, if he does not win love, he at least avoids hatred. He can very well be feared without being hated. This will always be the case as long as he leaves alone the property of his citizens and subjects, and their women.

When he must take someone’s life, he should do so only with proper justification and for an obvious reason. Above all, he must keep his hands off other people’s property, because people forget the death of their father sooner than the loss of their inheritance.

Besides, excuses for seizing property are never lacking. A ruler who has once begun to live by plunder will always find reasons to take what belongs to others. Reasons for taking life, on the other hand, are harder to find and run out sooner.

When a prince is with his army, however, and commands a large body of soldiers, he must not worry at all about being called cruel. Without that reputation, he would never keep his army united or ready to do its duty.

Among the remarkable achievements of Hannibal, this one is counted: he led an enormous army, made up of many different peoples, to fight in foreign lands. Yet no quarrels ever broke out, either among the soldiers or against their commander, whether his fortunes were good or bad.

This came from nothing other than his inhuman cruelty. Together with his boundless courage, it made him both revered and terrifying in his soldiers’ eyes. Without that cruelty, his other virtues would not have been enough to produce this result. Short-sighted writers admire his achievements from one angle, yet from another they condemn the main cause of them.

That his other virtues alone would not have been enough can be shown by the case of Scipio. He was a most excellent man, not only in his own time but in all recorded memory. Even so, his army rebelled against him in Spain.

This happened for no other reason than his excessive leniency, which gave his soldiers more freedom than military discipline allows. For this, Fabius Maximus rebuked him in the Senate and called him the corrupter of the Roman army.

Again, one of Scipio’s officers laid waste to the people of Locri. Yet Scipio did not avenge them, nor did he punish the officer’s arrogance, and this was entirely because of his easygoing nature.

His nature was so well known that a senator, trying to excuse him, said there were many men who knew much better how to avoid mistakes themselves than how to correct the mistakes of others.

Had Scipio remained in independent command, this trait would eventually have destroyed his fame and glory. But because he served under the authority of the Senate, this harmful quality was not only hidden but even added to his glory.

Returning to the question of whether it is better to be feared or loved, I conclude as follows. People love according to their own will, but they fear according to the will of the prince. A wise prince should therefore build on what is under his own control, not on what is under the control of others. He must only take care to avoid hatred, as I have noted.

CHAPTER XVIII. CONCERNING THE WAY IN WHICH PRINCES SHOULD KEEP FAITH

Everyone agrees how praiseworthy it is for a prince to keep his word and to live with integrity rather than with cunning. Still, our experience shows that the princes who have done great things have cared little about keeping faith. They have known how to outwit people through cunning, and in the end they have overcome those who relied on their word.

You must understand that there are two ways of fighting: one by law, the other by force. The first is proper to human beings, the second to beasts. But because the first is often not enough, one must turn to the second. A prince must therefore understand how to make use of both the beast and the man.

Ancient writers taught this lesson to princes figuratively. They describe how Achilles and many other princes of old were given to the Centaur Chiron to be raised and trained under his discipline. This means only that, because their teacher was half beast and half man, a prince must know how to use both natures. One without the other does not last.

Since a prince is compelled to act deliberately like a beast, he should choose the fox and the lion. The lion cannot defend himself against traps, and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves. A prince must therefore be a fox to recognize traps and a lion to frighten off wolves. Those who rely only on the lion do not understand what they are doing.

For this reason a wise ruler cannot keep his word, and should not, when keeping it would work against him and when the reasons that led him to give it no longer exist. If people were entirely good, this rule would not hold. But because they are bad and will not keep faith with you, you are not bound to keep faith with them either.

A prince will never lack legitimate reasons to excuse breaking his word. Endless modern examples could be given, showing how many treaties and promises have been made void and worthless by the faithlessness of princes. The one who has known best how to play the fox has succeeded best.

But one must know how to disguise this quality well, and be a great pretender and dissembler. People are so simple, and so ruled by their immediate needs, that anyone who sets out to deceive will always find someone who will let himself be deceived.

I cannot pass over one recent example in silence. Alexander the Sixth did nothing but deceive people, and never thought of doing anything else, yet he always found victims. No man was ever more forceful in his assurances, or swore greater oaths to affirm something, while keeping his word less. Even so, his deceptions always succeeded as he wished, because he understood this side of human nature well.

It is therefore unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have listed, but it is very necessary for him to appear to have them. I will even dare to say this: to have them and always practice them is harmful, while to appear to have them is useful.

He should appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, and upright, and actually be so. But his mind should be shaped in such a way that, if he needs not to be these things, he is able to change to the opposite and knows how to do it.

You must understand that a prince, especially a new one, cannot practice all the things for which people are held in esteem. To maintain the state, he is often forced to act against fidelity, friendship, humanity, and religion.

He must therefore have a mind ready to turn as the winds and changes of fortune compel it. Yet, as I said above, he should not depart from what is good if he can avoid it. But if he is compelled to, he must know how to go about it.

For this reason a prince should take care never to let anything pass his lips that is not full of the five qualities named above. To anyone who sees and hears him, he should seem entirely merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious.

There is no quality more necessary to appear to have than this last one. People generally judge more by the eye than by the hand, because everyone can see you, but few can come close enough to touch you. Everyone sees what you appear to be; few really know what you are.

Those few do not dare to oppose the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to protect them. And in the actions of all people, especially of princes, whose actions it is not prudent to challenge, everyone judges by the result.

So let a prince win credit for conquering and holding his state, and his methods will always be considered honorable and praised by everyone. The common people are always won over by how a thing appears and by what comes of it. And in the world there are only the common people; the few find a place only when the many have nothing to lean on.

One prince of the present day, whom it is better not to name, never preaches anything but peace and good faith, yet he is extremely hostile to both. Had he kept either one, it would have cost him his reputation and his kingdom many times over.

CHAPTER XIX. THAT ONE SHOULD AVOID BEING DESPISED AND HATED

I have now discussed the most important of the qualities mentioned above. I want to treat the rest briefly under one general principle, which I have partly stated already: a prince must consider how to avoid whatever will make him hated or held in contempt. Whenever he succeeds in this, he has done his part, and he need not fear any danger from other criticisms.

As I have said, what makes a prince hated above all is greed: seizing the property of his subjects and violating their women. He must abstain from both. When neither their property nor their honor is touched, most men live contentedly. The prince then has to contend only with the ambition of a few, and he can easily restrain them in many ways.

A prince becomes contemptible when he is seen as fickle, frivolous, effeminate, mean-spirited, or indecisive. He should guard against these qualities as carefully as a ship steers clear of a rock. His actions should show greatness, courage, seriousness, and strength.

In his private dealings with his subjects, he should make it clear that his decisions cannot be reversed. He should keep up such a reputation that no one hopes either to deceive him or to talk him round.

A prince who gives this impression of himself is highly esteemed, and a highly esteemed prince is not easily conspired against. As long as everyone knows that he is an excellent man and revered by his people, he can be attacked only with difficulty.

For this reason a prince should have two fears. One is internal and concerns his subjects. The other is external and concerns foreign powers. Against foreign powers he is defended by good arms and good allies, and if he is well armed, he will always have good allies.

Affairs at home will stay quiet as long as affairs abroad are quiet, unless a conspiracy has already disturbed them. Even if there is trouble abroad, a prince who has made his preparations and lived as I have described will withstand every attack, provided he does not lose heart. As I said earlier, this is what Nabis the Spartan did.

As for his subjects, when there is trouble abroad, the prince need only fear that they will conspire in secret. He can easily protect himself against this by avoiding hatred and contempt and by keeping the people satisfied with him. As I explained at length earlier, this is essential for him to achieve.

One of the most effective safeguards a prince can have against conspiracies is not to be hated or despised by the people. Anyone who conspires against a prince always expects that removing him will please the people. But when the conspirator can expect only to offend them, he will not have the courage to act, because the difficulties a conspirator faces are endless.

Experience shows that there have been many conspiracies, but few have succeeded. A conspirator cannot act alone, and he can recruit companions only from among those he believes to be discontented. But as soon as you reveal your plan to a discontented man, you give him the means to satisfy himself, because by denouncing you he can expect every kind of reward.

He sees that betraying you offers certain gain, while joining you is doubtful and full of danger. So to keep faith with you, he must be either an extraordinarily rare friend or a thoroughly stubborn enemy of the prince.

To put the matter briefly: on the conspirator’s side there is nothing but fear, suspicion, and the prospect of punishment to terrify him. On the prince’s side are the majesty of his office, the laws, the protection of his friends, and the power of the state to defend him. Add the goodwill of the people to all this, and no one could be reckless enough to conspire.

Ordinarily a conspirator has reason to fear before he carries out his plot. In this case he also has to fear what follows the crime. Because of it he will have the people as his enemy, and so he cannot hope for any escape.

Countless examples could be given, but I will be content with one that happened within our fathers’ memory. Messer Annibale Bentivogli, prince of Bologna and grandfather of the present Annibale, was murdered by the Canneschi, who had conspired against him. Of his family, only Messer Giovanni survived, and he was still a small child. Immediately after the assassination, the people rose up and killed all the Canneschi.

This came from the goodwill the people of Bologna felt toward the house of Bentivogli at that time. It was so strong that, after Annibale’s death, when no one was left in the city able to rule, the Bolognese acted on news that a member of the Bentivogli family was living in Florence. Until then he had been taken for the son of a blacksmith.

They sent to Florence for him and gave him the government of their city. He ruled it until Messer Giovanni was, in due course, ready to take over.

For this reason I believe a prince should give little weight to conspiracies when his people hold him in high regard. But when the people are hostile and hate him, he should fear everything and everyone.

Well-ordered states and wise princes have taken every care not to drive the nobles to desperation, and to keep the people satisfied and content. This is one of the most important aims a prince can have.

Among the best ordered and governed kingdoms of our time is France. It has many good institutions on which the king’s freedom and security depend. The first of these is the parliament and its authority. The founder of the kingdom knew how ambitious and bold the nobles were, and judged that they needed a bit in their mouths, like a horse, to hold them in.

He also knew that the people hated the nobles, and that this hatred was rooted in fear, so he wanted to protect the people. Yet he did not want this protection to be the king’s personal responsibility. Favoring the people would earn the king blame from the nobles, and favoring the nobles would earn him blame from the people.

To spare the king this blame, he set up an independent judge: a body that could beat down the great and favor the lesser without bringing any reproach on the king. No arrangement could be better or wiser, or give greater security to the king and the kingdom.

From this another important conclusion follows: princes should leave unpopular tasks to others and keep the business of granting favors in their own hands. I also believe that a prince should value the nobles, but not in a way that makes the people hate him.

Some who have studied the lives and deaths of the Roman emperors may think that many of them contradict my opinion. Some emperors lived nobly and showed great strength of character, yet still lost their empire or were killed by subjects who conspired against them.

To answer these objections, I will recall the characters of some of the emperors and show that the causes of their ruin were the same as those I have described. At the same time, I will put forward only what is noteworthy to anyone who studies the affairs of that period.

I think it is enough to take all the emperors who came to the throne from Marcus the philosopher down to Maximinus. They were Marcus and his son Commodus, Pertinax, Julian, Severus and his son Antoninus Caracalla, Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander, and Maximinus.

The first point to note is this. In other principalities a ruler has to contend only with the ambition of the nobles and the insolence of the people. The Roman emperors faced a third difficulty: they had to put up with the cruelty and greed of their soldiers. This problem was so hard to manage that it ruined many of them.

It was difficult to satisfy both soldiers and people. The people loved peace, and so they loved a prince without ambitions. The soldiers loved a warlike prince who was bold, cruel, and greedy. They were quite willing for him to practice these qualities on the people, so that they could get double pay and indulge their own greed and cruelty.

As a result, the emperors who lacked great authority, whether by birth or by training, were always overthrown. Most of them, especially those new to power, recognized how hard it was to reconcile these two opposing temperaments. So they leaned toward satisfying the soldiers and cared little about harming the people.

This course was necessary. Since princes cannot avoid being hated by someone, they should first try not to be hated by everyone. When they cannot manage that, they should work with the utmost care to avoid the hatred of the most powerful group.

So the emperors who needed special support because of their inexperience sided with the soldiers more readily than with the people. Whether this worked to their advantage depended on whether the prince knew how to keep his authority over the soldiers.

For these reasons, Marcus, Pertinax, and Alexander, all men of modest life, lovers of justice, enemies of cruelty, humane and kind, came to a sad end, with the exception of Marcus. He alone lived and died with honor. He had inherited the throne, so he owed nothing either to the soldiers or to the people.

He also had many virtues that made him respected. As long as he lived, he kept both groups in their place, and he was neither hated nor despised.

Pertinax, however, was made emperor against the soldiers’ wishes. They had grown used to living without restraint under Commodus and could not bear the honest life Pertinax wanted to impose on them. So he gave them reason to hate him. Contempt for his old age was added to that hatred, and he was overthrown at the very start of his reign.

Here it should be noted that a prince can earn hatred through good deeds as much as through bad ones. Therefore, as I said before, a prince who wants to keep his state is very often forced to do evil.

When the group you think you need in order to stay in power is corrupt, whether it is the people, the soldiers, or the nobles, you must go along with its moods and satisfy them. In that case good deeds will harm you.

Now let us come to Alexander. He was a man of such goodness that, among the other praises given to him, it is said that in the fourteen years he ruled the empire, he never put anyone to death without trial. Yet he was considered effeminate, a man who let his mother govern him. So he came to be despised, and the army conspired against him and murdered him.

Now turn to the opposite characters: Commodus, Severus, Antoninus Caracalla, and Maximinus. You will find that all of them were cruel and greedy. To satisfy their soldiers, they did not hesitate to commit every kind of injustice against the people. All of them except Severus came to a bad end.

Severus, however, had so much ability that he reigned successfully. He kept the soldiers on his side, even though he oppressed the people. His ability made him so admired by both soldiers and people that the people were, in a sense, left astonished and awed, while the soldiers remained respectful and satisfied.

Since this man’s actions as a new prince were great, I want to show briefly that he knew well how to imitate both the fox and the lion. As I said above, a prince must imitate both of these natures.

Severus knew that the Emperor Julian was indolent. So he persuaded the army in Sclavonia, which he commanded, that it would be right to march on Rome and avenge the death of Pertinax, who had been killed by the praetorian soldiers. Under this pretext, without appearing to seek the throne, he moved the army toward Rome. He reached Italy before anyone knew he had set out.

When he arrived in Rome, the Senate, out of fear, elected him emperor and put Julian to death. After this, Severus, who wanted to make himself master of the whole empire, faced two obstacles. One was in Asia, where Niger, commander of the Asian army, had had himself proclaimed emperor. The other was in the west, where Albinus also had designs on the throne.

He judged it dangerous to declare himself the enemy of both, so he decided to attack Niger and deceive Albinus. He wrote to Albinus that, having been elected emperor by the Senate, he was willing to share that rank with him. He sent him the title of Caesar and added that the Senate had made Albinus his colleague. Albinus accepted all this as true.

But once Severus had defeated and killed Niger and settled affairs in the east, he returned to Rome. There he complained to the Senate that Albinus, showing little gratitude for the benefits he had received, had treacherously tried to murder him, and that he was compelled to punish this ingratitude. He then sought Albinus out in France and took from him both his province and his life.

Anyone who examines this man’s actions carefully will find him a most fierce lion and a most cunning fox. He will find him feared and respected by everyone, and not hated by the army. Nor should it be surprising that he, a new man, was able to hold the empire so well. His immense reputation always protected him from the hatred the people might otherwise have felt for his violence.

But his son Antoninus was a man of great distinction, with excellent qualities that made the people admire him and the soldiers accept him. He was warlike and could endure any amount of hardship. He despised fine food and every other luxury. These traits made the armies love him.

Nevertheless, his ferocity and cruelty were so great and so unheard of that, after countless individual murders, he killed a large part of the population of Rome and all the people of Alexandria. The whole world came to hate him. Even the people around him feared him, so much so that a centurion murdered him in the middle of his own army.

It must be noted here that deaths of this kind cannot be prevented by princes. They are carried out deliberately, with resolute and desperate courage, and anyone who does not fear dying can inflict them.

Yet a prince need not fear them very much, because they are very rare. He only has to take care not to do any serious injury to the people he employs or keeps around him in the service of the state.

Antoninus had not taken this care. He had insultingly killed a brother of that centurion, and he threatened the centurion himself every day, yet he still kept him in his bodyguard. This proved a reckless thing to do, and it led to the emperor’s ruin.

Now let us turn to Commodus. Holding the empire should have been very easy for him. As the son of Marcus, he had inherited it, and he only needed to follow in his father’s footsteps to please both the people and the soldiers.

But he was cruel and brutal by nature. He devoted himself to entertaining the soldiers and corrupting them, so that he could freely plunder the people.

At the same time, he failed to maintain his dignity. He often went down into the arena to compete with gladiators and did other base things unworthy of the imperial majesty. As a result, the soldiers came to hold him in contempt. Hated by one group and despised by the other, he became the target of a conspiracy and was killed.

It remains to discuss the character of Maximinus. He was a very warlike man. The armies, disgusted with the softness of Alexander, whom I have already discussed, killed him and raised Maximinus to the throne. He did not hold it for long, because two things made him both hated and despised.

The first was that he had once herded sheep in Thrace. Everyone knew this, and everyone considered it a great disgrace, so it brought him into contempt. The second was that, when he came to power, he put off going to Rome and taking possession of the imperial seat.

He had also earned a reputation for extreme ferocity, because his prefects in Rome and elsewhere in the empire had committed many cruelties on his behalf. The whole world was therefore moved to anger at his low birth and to fear at his savagery.

First Africa rebelled. Then the Senate, together with all the people of Rome, and all of Italy conspired against him. His own army joined them as well.

That army was besieging Aquileia and having trouble taking it. The soldiers were already disgusted with his cruelties. When they saw how many were now against him, they feared him less, and they murdered him.

I do not wish to discuss Heliogabalus, Macrinus, or Julian. They were thoroughly contemptible and were quickly wiped out. Instead, I will bring this discussion to a close.

Princes in our own times face this difficulty of having to satisfy their soldiers beyond all reason to a far smaller degree. One still has to grant soldiers some indulgence, but that is soon done. None of today’s princes have armies that have grown old in governing and administering provinces, as the armies of the Roman Empire had.

In those days it was more necessary to satisfy the soldiers than the people. Now it is more necessary for all princes, except the Turk and the Sultan, to satisfy the people rather than the soldiers, because the people are now the more powerful.

I have made an exception of the Turk because he always keeps around him twelve thousand infantry and fifteen thousand cavalry. The security and strength of his kingdom depend on them. He must therefore set aside every consideration for the people and keep these soldiers as his friends.

The Sultan’s kingdom is similar. It is entirely in the hands of soldiers, so he too must keep them as his friends without regard for the people.

But you should note that the Sultan’s state is unlike all other principalities. It resembles the Christian papacy, which cannot be called either a hereditary principality or a newly formed one.

The sons of the old prince do not inherit. Instead, the successor is the man elected to the position by those who hold the authority to choose him, and the sons remain only noblemen.

Because this is an ancient custom, the state cannot be called a new principality. It has none of the difficulties found in new ones. Although the prince himself is new, the constitution of the state is old, and it is designed to receive him as if he were its hereditary lord.

Returning to the subject of our discussion, I say this. Anyone who considers it will recognize that either hatred or contempt was fatal to the emperors named above.

It will also become clear how it happened that some of them acted in one way and some in the other, yet in each group only one came to a happy end, while the rest came to unhappy ones.

For Pertinax and Alexander, who were new princes, it would have been useless and dangerous to imitate Marcus, who had inherited his principality. Likewise, for Caracalla, Commodus, and Maximinus, it would have been utterly destructive to imitate Severus, because they lacked the ability needed to follow in his footsteps.

A prince who is new to his principality, therefore, cannot imitate the actions of Marcus. Nor does he need to follow those of Severus. Instead, he should take from Severus the elements necessary to found his state, and from Marcus those that are fitting and glorious for preserving a state that is already stable and secure.

CHAPTER XX. ARE FORTRESSES, AND MANY OTHER THINGS TO WHICH PRINCES OFTEN RESORT, ADVANTAGEOUS OR HURTFUL?

Princes have tried many methods to hold their states securely. Some have disarmed their subjects. Others have kept the towns under their rule divided by factions. Others have deliberately encouraged hostility against themselves. Others have worked to win over the men they distrusted when their rule began. Some have built fortresses, and some have torn them down.

No one can give a final judgment on all these methods without knowing the particular circumstances of the state where the decision has to be made. Nevertheless, I will speak as generally as the subject itself allows.

There has never been a new prince who disarmed his subjects. On the contrary, whenever he has found them disarmed, he has always armed them. When you arm them, those weapons become yours. The men you distrusted become loyal, the men who were already loyal stay that way, and your subjects become your supporters.

You cannot arm all your subjects. But when the ones you arm receive this benefit, you can deal more freely with the rest. Both groups understand the difference in treatment. Those you arm become dependent on you. The others accept it, because they consider it right that those who face the most danger and do the most service should receive the most reward.

When you disarm your subjects, however, you offend them immediately. You show that you distrust them, either because you think them cowardly or because you doubt their loyalty. Either opinion breeds hatred against you.

And since you cannot remain unarmed, you are forced to turn to mercenaries, whose character I have already described. Even if they were good, they would not be enough to defend you against powerful enemies and subjects you distrust.

So, as I have said, a new prince in a new principality has always distributed arms. History is full of examples.

The case is different when a prince acquires a new state and adds it as a province to the state he already holds. Then he must disarm the men of the new state, except those who supported him in acquiring it. Even these, given time and opportunity, should be made soft and effeminate.

Everything should be arranged so that all the armed men in the new state are your own soldiers, the ones who lived near you in your original state.

Our ancestors, and those who were thought wise, used to say that Pistoia had to be held by factions and Pisa by fortresses. Following this idea, they encouraged quarrels in some of the towns that paid them tribute, so that they could keep hold of them more easily.

This may have worked well enough in those days, when Italy was in a kind of balance. But I do not believe it can be accepted as a rule for today, because I do not believe factions can ever be useful.

On the contrary, when an enemy attacks you while your cities are divided, you are certain to lose them quickly. The weaker party will always side with the outside forces, and the other party will not be able to resist on its own.

The Venetians, moved, I believe, by the reasoning above, encouraged the Guelph and Ghibelline factions in the cities that paid them tribute. They never let these disputes come to bloodshed, but they kept them alive. Their aim was that the citizens, absorbed in their own quarrels, would never unite against Venice.

As we saw, this did not turn out as they expected. After the Venetian defeat at Vaila, one of the parties immediately took courage and seized control of the state.

Such methods therefore reveal weakness in a prince, because a strong principality will never permit these factions. Policies like this, meant to make subjects easier to manage, are useful only in peacetime. When war comes, they prove to be a mistake.

There is no doubt that princes become great by overcoming the difficulties and obstacles they face. This is why fortune raises up enemies against a new prince and leads them to plot against him, especially when she wants to make him great. A new prince has a greater need to earn renown than a hereditary one.

Fortune does this so that he has the chance to defeat those enemies and rise higher by them, as though climbing a ladder his enemies have set up for him.

For this reason, many people think that a wise prince, when he has the chance, should cunningly encourage some hostility against himself. Then, once he has crushed it, his reputation will rise all the higher.

Princes, especially new ones, have found more loyalty and help from the men they distrusted at the start of their rule than from those they trusted at the start. Pandolfo Petrucci, Prince of Siena, governed his state more through men who had been distrusted than through anyone else.

On this question, however, one cannot speak in general terms, because it varies so much from one person to another. I will say only this.

Some men are hostile when a principality is first established. If they are the kind who need support to maintain their position, the prince can always win them over very easily. They will also be firmly bound to serve him faithfully, because they know how necessary it is for them to erase, through their actions, the bad opinion he had formed of them.

As a result, the prince always gets more benefit from them than from those who serve him with too much security and may therefore neglect his business.

Since the subject requires it, I must also warn a prince who has gained a new state with secret help from people inside it. He must think carefully about why they favored him.

If they did not act from genuine affection for him, but only from discontent with their own government, he will keep them friendly only with great trouble and difficulty. It will be impossible to satisfy them.

If we weigh the reasons for this carefully, using examples from ancient and modern affairs, we will find something important. It is easier for the prince to make friends of the men who were content under the former government, and who were therefore his enemies, than of the men who were discontented with it, favored him, and encouraged him to seize it.

Princes have long been in the habit of building fortresses to hold their states more securely. A fortress serves as a bridle and bit, restraining anyone who might plot against the prince, as a horse is controlled by its harness. It also gives him a place of refuge from a first attack. I praise this practice, because it has been used in the past.

Nevertheless, in our own times Messer Nicolo Vitelli has been seen demolishing two fortresses in Citta di Castello in order to keep that state.

Guido Ubaldo, Duke of Urbino, had been driven out of his dominion by Cesare Borgia. When he returned, he razed every fortress in that province to its foundations, believing that without them it would be harder to lose the state again. The Bentivogli reached a similar decision when they returned to Bologna.

Fortresses, then, are useful or not depending on circumstances. If they help you in one way, they harm you in another.

The question can be reasoned out as follows. A prince who has more to fear from his own people than from foreigners should build fortresses. A prince who has more to fear from foreigners than from his own people should do without them.

The castle of Milan, built by Francesco Sforza, has caused, and will continue to cause, more trouble for the house of Sforza than any other disorder in that state.

For this reason, the best possible fortress is not to be hated by the people. You may hold the fortresses, but they will not save you if the people hate you. When a people has taken up arms against you, there will never be a shortage of foreigners ready to help them.

In our times, fortresses have not been seen to help any prince, with one exception: the Countess of Forli, when her husband, Count Girolamo, was killed. Her fortress allowed her to withstand the popular uprising and wait for help from Milan, and so she recovered her state.

At that time, circumstances were such that no foreigners could come to the people’s aid.

Later, however, her fortresses were of little use to her when Cesare Borgia attacked her and the people, who were hostile to her, joined forces with the foreigners. So it would have been safer for her, both then and earlier, to avoid being hated by the people than to rely on fortresses.

All things considered, then, I will praise the prince who builds fortresses and also the prince who does not. But I will blame any prince who trusts in fortresses and cares little about being hated by the people.

CHAPTER XXI. HOW A PRINCE SHOULD CONDUCT HIMSELF SO AS TO GAIN RENOWN

Nothing makes a prince so highly esteemed as great undertakings and a fine example. In our own time we have Ferdinand of Aragon, the present King of Spain. He can almost be called a new prince, because fame and glory have raised him from an insignificant king to the foremost king in Christendom. If you consider his deeds, you will find them all great, and some of them extraordinary.

At the beginning of his reign he attacked Granada, and this undertaking was the foundation of his power. At first he did it quietly and without fear of interference. He kept the barons of Castile thinking about the war, so they did not expect any changes at home. As a result, they did not notice that he was using these means to gain power and authority over them.

He was able to support his armies with money from the Church and from the people. That long war also let him build the foundation of the military skill that has distinguished him ever since.

He always used religion as a pretext so that he could undertake greater schemes. In this spirit he devoted himself, with pious cruelty, to driving the Moors out of his kingdom and clearing it of them. There could be no more admirable example, nor a rarer one.

Under this same cloak of religion he attacked Africa, came down on Italy, and has finally attacked France. In this way his achievements and plans have always been great. They have kept his people in suspense and admiration, absorbed in waiting to see how each one would turn out.

His actions have arisen one out of another so closely that people have never had time to organize steady opposition against him.

It also greatly helps a prince to set unusual examples in domestic affairs, like those told of Messer Bernabo da Milano. Whenever someone in civil life did something extraordinary, good or bad, Bernabo would find some way to reward or punish that person that people would talk about widely.

Above all, a prince should try in every action to earn the reputation of being a great and remarkable man.

A prince is also respected when he is either a true friend or an outright enemy. That is, he declares himself without reservation for one side against the other. This course will always be more advantageous than staying neutral.

Suppose two of your powerful neighbors come to blows. They will be of one of two kinds. Either the winner will be someone you have to fear, or he will not.

In either case, it will always be better for you to declare yourself and fight vigorously. Take the first case. If you do not declare yourself, you will invariably fall prey to the winner, to the pleasure and satisfaction of the loser. You will have no justification to offer, and nothing to protect or shelter you.

The winner does not want doubtful friends who will not help him in a time of trial. The loser will not take you in, because you did not willingly take up your sword and share his fate.

Antiochus came into Greece, invited by the Ætolians to drive out the Romans. He sent envoys to the Achaeans, who were friends of the Romans, urging them to remain neutral. The Romans, for their part, urged them to take up arms. The question was debated in the Achaeans’ council, where Antiochus’s representative urged them to stay neutral.

The Roman representative replied: “It has been said that it is better and more advantageous for your state not to interfere in our war. Nothing could be more mistaken. If you do not interfere, you will be left without favor or respect, as the prize of whoever wins.”

So it will always happen that whoever is not your friend will ask for your neutrality, while whoever is your friend will urge you to declare yourself and take up arms. Indecisive princes usually choose neutrality to avoid immediate dangers, and they are usually ruined.

But suppose a prince boldly declares himself for one side, and his ally wins. The victor may be powerful and may have the prince at his mercy. Yet the victor is indebted to him, and a bond of friendship has been formed. People are never so shameless as to make themselves a monument of ingratitude by oppressing you.

Besides, victories are never so complete that the winner can disregard everything, and especially justice.

If your ally loses, he may give you shelter. While he is able, he may help you, and you become partners in a fortune that may rise again.

Now consider the second case, where the combatants are such that you have no reason to worry about who wins. Here it is even more prudent to take sides. You help destroy one of them with the aid of the other, who would have saved him instead if he had been wise. And when your ally wins, as he cannot fail to do with your help, he is left at your discretion.

It should be noted here that a prince must take care never to ally himself with someone more powerful than himself in order to attack others, unless necessity compels him, as was said above. If that ally wins, you are at his discretion, and princes should avoid being at anyone’s discretion as far as they can.

The Venetians joined with France against the Duke of Milan, and this alliance, which caused their ruin, could have been avoided. But sometimes it cannot be avoided, as happened to the Florentines when the Pope and Spain sent armies to attack Lombardy. In such a case, for the reasons given above, the prince ought to favor one of the parties.

No government should ever imagine that it can choose perfectly safe courses. It should expect instead to take very uncertain ones. In ordinary affairs we find that no one ever tries to avoid one trouble without running into another. Prudence consists in knowing how to judge the nature of each trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.

A prince should also show himself a patron of talent and honor those who excel in every art. At the same time, he should encourage his citizens to pursue their occupations peacefully, in commerce, in agriculture, and in every other line of work.

No one should be discouraged from improving his property for fear that it will be taken from him. No one should hesitate to open up trade for fear of taxes. Instead, the prince should offer rewards to anyone who wants to do these things, and to anyone who seeks in any way to bring honor to his city or state.

Further, at suitable times of year, he should entertain the people with festivals and spectacles. Every city is divided into guilds or associations, so he should hold these bodies in esteem and sometimes join them, showing himself an example of courtesy and generosity.

Through all this he must always maintain the majesty of his rank, which he must never allow to be lessened in any way.

CHAPTER XXII. CONCERNING THE SECRETARIES OF PRINCES

Choosing his ministers is a matter of real importance for a prince. Whether they turn out good or bad depends on his own judgment.

The first impression people form of a prince, and of his intelligence, comes from looking at the men he keeps around him. When they are capable and loyal, he can always be considered wise, because he has known how to recognize capable men and how to keep them loyal.

When his ministers are not like this, no one can think well of him. His first mistake was in choosing them.

Everyone who knew Messer Antonio da Venafro as the minister of Pandolfo Petrucci, Prince of Siena, considered Pandolfo a very clever man for having chosen Venafro. The reason is that there are three kinds of minds.

• The first understands things on its own.
• The second recognizes what others have understood.
• The third understands neither on its own nor when others explain.

The first is the best, the second is good, and the third is useless.

It necessarily follows that if Pandolfo was not in the first rank, he was in the second. A man may lack the initiative to devise things himself. But if he has the judgment to tell good from bad when he hears it said or sees it done, he can recognize the good and bad actions of his minister.

He can then praise the good and correct the bad. As a result, the minister cannot hope to deceive him, and so he stays honest.

There is one test that never fails when a prince wants to judge a minister. Watch for a minister who thinks more about his own interests than about yours, and who privately looks for his own profit in everything. Such a man will never be a good minister, and you will never be able to trust him.

Anyone who holds another man’s state in his hands should never think of himself. He should always think of his prince, and he should never concern himself with matters that do not concern the prince.

The prince, for his part, must work to keep his minister honest. He should pay close attention to him, honor him, make him rich, do him favors, and share with him both honors and responsibilities. At the same time, he should make the minister see that he cannot stand on his own without the prince.

That way, the many honors he receives will leave him with no desire for more honors. His great wealth will leave him with no desire for more wealth. And his many responsibilities will make him fear any change in his situation.

When ministers are disposed this way toward their princes, and princes this way toward their ministers, they can trust each other. When it is otherwise, the outcome will always be disastrous for one or the other.

CHAPTER XXIII. HOW FLATTERERS SHOULD BE AVOIDED

I do not want to leave out an important part of this subject. It concerns a danger that princes escape only with difficulty, unless they are very careful and discerning. This danger is flatterers, and courts are full of them.

Men are so pleased with their own affairs, and so easily deceived about them, that they find it hard to protect themselves from this plague. And if they do try to defend themselves, they risk falling into contempt.

The reason is simple. The only way to guard yourself against flatterers is to let people understand that telling you the truth does not offend you. But when everyone is free to tell you the truth, their respect for you declines.

A wise prince should therefore take a third course. He should choose the wise men in his state and give only them the freedom to speak the truth to him. Even then, they should speak only about the matters he asks about, and nothing else.

He should, however, question them about everything and listen to their opinions. Afterward, he should reach his own conclusions.

With these counsellors, both individually and as a group, he should conduct himself so that each of them knows that the more freely he speaks, the more favour he will receive. Apart from these men, the prince should listen to no one. He should carry out what he has decided and hold firmly to his decisions.

A prince who does otherwise meets one of two fates. Either flatterers ruin him, or he changes his mind so often in response to differing opinions that he falls into contempt.

I want to offer a modern example on this subject. Fra Luca, who handled the affairs of Maximilian, the present emperor, said of his majesty: “He consulted no one, yet he never got his own way in anything.”

This happened because the emperor followed a practice opposite to the one I have described. He is a secretive man. He does not share his plans with anyone, and he does not ask for opinions on them.

But when he begins to carry out his plans, they become known. The men around him then immediately obstruct them, and since he is easily swayed, he is turned away from his purpose.

As a result, what he does one day he undoes the next. No one ever understands what he wants or intends to do, and no one can rely on his decisions.

A prince, then, should always take counsel, but only when he chooses, not when others choose. In fact, he should discourage everyone from offering advice unless he asks for it.

Even so, he should constantly ask questions and then listen patiently to the answers on the matters he has raised. And if he learns that anyone, for any reason, has not told him the truth, he should make his anger felt.

Some people think that a prince who gives an impression of wisdom owes this not to his own ability but to the good advisers around him. They are undoubtedly mistaken.

There is a rule that never fails: a prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice. The only exception is when he happens to hand over his affairs entirely to one person who turns out to be a very prudent man.

In that case he may indeed be well governed, but not for long. Such a governor would soon take the state away from him.

But if a prince who is not inexperienced takes counsel from more than one person, he will never receive unified advice, nor will he know how to bring it together. Each counsellor will think of his own interests, and the prince will not know how to control them or see through them.

Counsellors cannot be found who are any different. Men will always prove false to you unless some necessity forces them to be honest.

We must therefore conclude that good advice, wherever it comes from, springs from the wisdom of the prince. The prince’s wisdom does not spring from good advice.

CHAPTER XXIV. WHY THE PRINCES OF ITALY HAVE LOST THEIR STATES

If a new prince follows the advice given so far with care, he will seem well established. In fact, he will quickly become more secure and firmly rooted in his state than if he had ruled there for a long time.

The reason is that people watch a new prince’s actions much more closely than those of a hereditary prince. When they see that he is capable, he wins over more people and binds them to him far more tightly than ancient royal blood could.

People care more about the present than the past. When they find the present good, they enjoy it and look no further. They will also defend such a prince with everything they have, provided he does not fail them in other respects.

So a prince earns double glory when he founds a new principality and then improves and strengthens it with good laws, good armies, good allies, and a good example. In the same way, a man born a prince earns double disgrace when he loses his state through lack of wisdom.

Consider the rulers who have lost their states in Italy in our own times, such as the King of Naples, the Duke of Milan, and others. First, they all share one common defect concerning their armies, for the reasons discussed at length earlier.

Second, you will see that some of them either had the people against them, or, if the people were friendly, did not know how to secure the support of the nobles. Without these defects, a state with enough power to keep an army in the field cannot be lost.

Consider Philip of Macedon. I do not mean the father of Alexander the Great, but the Philip who was defeated by Titus Quintius. His territory was small compared with the great power of the Romans and the Greeks who attacked him.

Yet he was a warlike man who knew how to win over the people and secure the nobles. As a result, he held out against his enemies for many years. Although he eventually lost control of some cities, he still kept his kingdom.

Our princes, then, should not blame fortune for losing principalities they had held for so many years. They should blame their own idleness. In quiet times they never imagined that anything could change. It is a common human failing not to prepare during calm weather for the coming storm.

When bad times did arrive, these princes thought about escape rather than defense. They hoped that the people, disgusted by the arrogance of the conquerors, would call them back.

This course may be a reasonable one when everything else has failed. But it is a grave mistake to neglect every other remedy in favor of it. You should never choose to fall in the belief that you will later find someone to restore you.

Either that restoration never comes, or, if it does, it will not make you secure. A rescue that does not depend on you is worthless. The only defenses that are reliable, certain, and lasting are those that depend on yourself and your own ability.

CHAPTER XXV. WHAT FORTUNE CAN EFFECT IN HUMAN AFFAIRS AND HOW TO WITHSTAND HER

I am well aware that many people have believed, and still believe, that the affairs of the world are so completely governed by fortune and by God that human wisdom cannot steer them, and that no one can do anything to help. From this they conclude that there is little point in working hard at our affairs, and that we should simply let chance govern them.

This opinion has gained more credit in our own time because of the great upheavals we have seen, and still see every day, which no one could have predicted. When I think about this, I am sometimes partly inclined to agree with them.

Nevertheless, so as not to do away with our free will altogether, I hold this to be true: Fortune decides half of our actions, but she still leaves the other half, or perhaps a little less, for us to direct ourselves.

I compare fortune to one of those violent rivers that, when it floods, overflows the plains. It sweeps away trees and buildings and carries the soil from one place to another. Everything flees before it. Everything gives way to its force, and nothing can withstand it in any way.

Yet even though the river behaves this way, it does not follow that people cannot prepare for it. When the weather is calm, they can build defenses and embankments. Then, when the river rises again, the water can be channeled off through a canal, and its force will be neither so unchecked nor so destructive.

Fortune works the same way. She shows her power where no strength and ability have been prepared to resist her. She turns her force toward the places where she knows no embankments or defenses have been built to hold her back.

Consider Italy, which is the center of these upheavals and the place that set them in motion. You will see that it is open country, without embankments and without any defense.

If Italy had been defended with proper strength and ability, as Germany, Spain, and France are, this invasion would either not have caused the great changes it has caused, or it would not have happened at all. That is enough, I think, on resisting fortune in general.

Turning now to particular cases, I say that a prince may be seen prospering today and ruined tomorrow without any change in his temperament or character. I believe this happens, first, for reasons already discussed at length: a prince who relies entirely on fortune is lost when his fortune changes.

I also believe that a prince will succeed if he suits his actions to the character of the times, and that one whose actions are out of step with the times will fail.

The reason is this. Every person pursues the same ends, namely glory and wealth, but people are seen to pursue them by different methods. One acts with caution, another with haste. One uses force, another skill. One relies on patience, another on its opposite. And each may reach the goal by a different method.

You can also see two cautious men, one of whom reaches his goal while the other fails. Likewise, two men can succeed equally by different methods, one being cautious and the other impetuous.

All of this comes from nothing other than whether or not their methods suit the character of the times. That is why, as I have said, two men acting differently can produce the same result, while of two men acting alike, one reaches his goal and the other does not.

Rises and falls in a person’s fortunes also come from this. Suppose a man governs himself with caution and patience, and the times and circumstances happen to favor that approach. His conduct succeeds, and his fortune is made. But if the times and circumstances change, he is ruined unless he changes his way of acting.

Yet it is rare to find a man prudent enough to know how to adapt himself to such a change. There are two reasons. First, he cannot depart from what his nature inclines him to do. Second, having always prospered by acting in one way, he cannot be persuaded that it is wise to abandon it.

So when the time comes for the cautious man to act boldly, he does not know how, and therefore he is ruined. Had he changed his conduct along with the times, his fortune would not have changed.

Pope Julius the Second acted impetuously in all his affairs. He found that the times and circumstances suited that way of acting so well that he always succeeded.

Consider his first campaign against Bologna, while Messer Giovanni Bentivogli was still alive. The Venetians did not approve of it, and neither did the King of Spain. Julius was also still negotiating the campaign with the King of France.

Nevertheless, with his usual boldness and energy, he set out on the expedition in person. This move left Spain and the Venetians hesitant and inactive: the Venetians out of fear, and Spain because it hoped to recover the whole kingdom of Naples.

At the same time, Julius drew the King of France along behind him. The king had seen the Pope set out, and he wanted to make the Pope his friend so that he could humble the Venetians. He therefore found it impossible to refuse him.

So Julius, by acting impetuously, accomplished what no other pope could have done with ordinary human prudence. If he had waited in Rome until he could leave with his plans settled and everything arranged, as any other pope would have done, he would never have succeeded. The King of France would have made a thousand excuses, and the others would have raised a thousand fears.

I will leave aside his other actions, since they were all of the same kind and all succeeded. The shortness of his life did not let him experience the opposite.

But if circumstances had arisen that required him to proceed cautiously, his ruin would have followed. He would never have departed from the ways to which his nature inclined him.

I conclude, therefore, that since fortune changes while people remain fixed in their ways, people succeed as long as the two agree, and fail when they come into conflict.

For my part, I consider it better to be bold than cautious. Fortune is a woman, and if you want to keep her under control, you must beat her and treat her roughly. We see that she lets herself be mastered by the bold rather than by those who proceed more coldly.

Therefore, like a woman, she is always a friend to young men, because they are less cautious, more forceful, and command her with greater daring.

CHAPTER XXVI. AN EXHORTATION TO LIBERATE ITALY FROM THE BARBARIANS

I have carefully considered everything discussed in the chapters above. I have also asked myself whether the present times favour a new prince. Are there conditions that would allow a wise and capable ruler to introduce a new order, one that would bring honour to him and benefit to the people of this country?

My answer is that so many circumstances now combine in a new prince’s favour that I have never known a time better suited to one than the present.

Earlier I said that the people of Israel had to be held captive so that the ability of Moses could be revealed. The Persians had to be oppressed by the Medes so that the greatness of Cyrus’s spirit could be discovered. The Athenians had to be scattered so that the capabilities of Theseus could be shown.

If that is true, then in our own time Italy had to be brought to her present extremity so that the excellence of an Italian spirit could be revealed. She had to become more enslaved than the Hebrews, more oppressed than the Persians, and more scattered than the Athenians. She had to be left without a leader and without order, beaten, plundered, torn apart, and overrun, and she had to endure every kind of devastation.

Recently one man showed a spark of promise that made us think God had chosen him to redeem us. Later, however, at the height of his career, fortune cast him aside.

So Italy, left almost lifeless, is still waiting for someone to heal her wounds. She waits for someone to end the ravaging and plundering of Lombardy and the swindling and heavy taxation of the Kingdom of Naples and of Tuscany, and to cleanse the sores that have festered for so long.

Italy can be seen praying to God to send someone who will deliver her from these wrongs and from the insolence of the barbarians. She can also be seen ready and willing to follow a banner, if only someone will raise it.

At present there is no one in whom she can place more hope than your illustrious house. It has courage and good fortune. It is favoured by God and by the Church, of which it is now the head. Your house could therefore become the leader of this redemption.

This will not be difficult if you call to mind the actions and lives of the men I have named. They were great and remarkable men, but they were still men. None of them had a better opportunity than the present one offers. Their undertakings were neither more just nor easier than this one, and God was no more their friend than He is yours.

Our cause has great justice on its side, because a war that is necessary is just, and arms are sacred when there is no hope except in them.

The willingness here is also very great. Where willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great, provided that you follow the example of the men I have pointed out to you.

Beyond this, the ways of God have been shown in extraordinary signs, beyond any precedent. The sea has been divided. A cloud has led the way. The rock has poured out water. Manna has rained down. Everything has contributed to your greatness.

You must do the rest. God does not wish to do everything, because that would take away our free will and the share of glory that belongs to us.

It is not surprising that none of the Italians I mentioned earlier have been able to achieve what is now expected of your illustrious house. Nor is it surprising that, through so many upheavals in Italy and so many campaigns, Italian military skill has always seemed exhausted.

This has happened because the old order of things was not good, and none of us has known how to find a new one.

Nothing brings a man more honour than establishing new laws and new institutions when he himself has newly risen to power. When such things are well founded and carry dignity, they make him revered and admired. In Italy there is no lack of opportunities to introduce them in every form.

Italy has great strength in her limbs but lacks it in her head. Look closely at duels and at hand-to-hand fights. There you will see how much the Italians excel in strength, skill, and cleverness.

When it comes to armies, however, they cannot compare. This comes entirely from the weakness of their leaders. Those who are capable will not obey, and each one believes that he knows best. No one has ever stood out so far above the rest, in either ability or fortune, that the others would give way to him.

This is why, for so long and through so much fighting over the past twenty years, every army made up entirely of Italians has performed poorly. The first witness to this is Il Taro, followed by Allesandria, Capua, Genoa, Vaila, Bologna, and Mestri.

If your illustrious house wishes to follow these remarkable men who redeemed their countries, it must first of all provide itself with its own forces. This is the true foundation of every undertaking, because there can be no more faithful, truer, or better soldiers.

Even if each of these soldiers is good on his own, together they will be much better when they are commanded by their prince, honoured by him, and paid at his expense. You must therefore be prepared with forces of this kind, so that you can defend yourself against foreigners with Italian courage.

Swiss and Spanish infantry may be considered very formidable. Yet each has a weakness, and because of it a third kind of infantry could not only stand against them but could be counted on to defeat them.

The Spanish cannot withstand cavalry, and the Swiss are afraid of infantry whenever they meet it in close combat. As a result, as has been seen and may be seen again, the Spanish cannot hold out against French cavalry, and the Swiss are defeated by Spanish infantry.

The second point has not been fully proved, but there was some evidence for it at the battle of Ravenna. There the Spanish infantry faced German battalions, which use the same tactics as the Swiss.

The Spanish, using their physical agility and their shields, got in underneath the Germans’ pikes. There they stood safe from harm and able to attack, while the Germans were helpless. If the cavalry had not charged in, the Germans would have been finished.

Knowing the weaknesses of both these kinds of infantry, it is therefore possible to devise a new one that can resist cavalry and is not afraid of other infantry. This does not require creating an entirely new type of army, only a variation on the old one. Improvements of this kind are what bring reputation and power to a new prince.

This opportunity, then, must not be allowed to pass. Italy must at last see her liberator appear.

No words can express the love with which he would be received in all the provinces that have suffered so much from these foreign invasions. He would be met with a thirst for revenge, with unshakable loyalty, with devotion, and with tears.

What door would be closed to him? Who would refuse to obey him? What envy would stand in his way? What Italian would refuse to honour him? This barbarian rule stinks to all of us.

Let your illustrious house, therefore, take up this task with the courage and hope with which all just undertakings are begun. Then under its banner our native land may be made noble again, and under its guidance the words of Petrarch may come true:

Virtu contro al Furore
Prendera l’arme, e fia il combatter corto:
Che l’antico valore
Negli italici cuor non e ancor morto.

Virtue against fury shall advance the fight,
And it in the combat soon shall put to flight:
For the old Roman valour is not dead,
Nor in the Italians’ breasts extinguished.

Edward Dacre, 1640.

End of The Prince. Choose another edition.