Machiavelli

by Miles J. Unger

  Machiavelli proved right on the mark. On the 26th he informed his bosses: “Messer Remirro this morning has been found cut in two in the piazza, where he remains and where all the people may still see him. The reason for his death is not well known, except that it was pleasing to the Prince, who wishes to show that he can make or unmake men at will, according to their just deserts.” In The Prince, Machiavelli offers an ever more cold-blooded explanation: “Recognizing that past severities had generated a measure of hatred against him, [Valentino] then determined to free himself of all popular suspicion by demonstrating that if there had been any acts of cruelty they had proceeded not from him but from his minister instead. Having found an occasion to do this, one morning he had Remirro’s body, cut in two, placed on view in the public square of Cesena with a wooden block and a blood-stained knife resting beside it. The horror of that spectacle gave the people reason to be both shocked and gratified.”

  Meanwhile, Paolo Orsini, Vitelozzo Vitelli, and Oliverotto da Fermo anxiously awaited Valentino’s arrival in Sinigaglia, twenty miles further along the Adriatic coast. News of Remirro’s murder should have warned them against placing their trust in the mercurial Valentino, but if they understood the danger, they still made no attempt to pull their necks from the tightening noose.

  Valentino and his army arrived at Sinigaglia on the last day of December. Repeating the pattern that had held since their one decisive victory at Fossombrone, the captains, inexplicably, met strength with weakness. Rather than remaining with their own troops, Orsini and de Fermo apparently decided to demonstrate their good faith by presenting themselves to the Duke accompanied by only a minimal escort. Machiavelli later described the dramatic scene as the former rivals came face to face: “Vitellozzo, Pagolo, and the Duke (Orsini) of Gravina, riding mules, went to meet the Duke, accompanied by a few cavalry. And Vitellozzo, unarmed, in a cloak lined with green, very disconsolate, as though he were aware of his coming death . . . . When these three, then, came into the presence of the Duke and saluted him courteously, he welcomed them with a pleasant face . . . . [Later] having entered Sinigaglia, all of them dismounted at the quarters of the Duke and went with him into a private room, where the Duke made them prisoners.” Thus, meekly, did these violent men go to their deaths. Vitellozzo and Oliverotto were strangled in their cells that same night, while Paolo Orsini was spared only long enough to ensure that the Pope’s men in Rome first arrested his kinsman, the powerful Cardinal Orsini. The two soon followed Vitelli and da Fermo to the grave, as did many other members of the hated Orsini clan.

  One of the first to learn of the executions was the Second Chancellor of Florence, who was summoned to a late-night meeting, where, Machiavelli recorded, the Duke “with the brightest face in the world, expressed his satisfaction at his triumph.”

  Returning to his modest rooms that night, Machiavelli asked himself: How could such ruthless men allow themselves to be destroyed by Cesare Borgia without offering even token resistance? His conclusion, reached after much thought and spelled out most fully in a notorious chapter of The Prince, is that a lie, convincingly told, is among the most powerful weapons in the ruler’s arsenal. “Everyone knows how laudable it is,” he remarked facetiously, “for a prince to keep his word and live with integrity instead of by trickery. But the experience of our own time shows us that the princes who have accomplished great things are those who cared little for keeping faith with the people, and who used cleverness to befuddle the minds of men. In the end, such princes overcame those who counted on loyalty alone.” Though he does not mention him by name, he clearly had Cesare Borgia in mind when he wrote these words. He follows with his famous analogy from the animal kingdom: “Since a prince is required to play the beast, he must learn from both the fox and the lion, because a lion cannot defend himself against snares, nor the fox against wolves.”

  Over the years Machiavelli’s critics have been more outraged by this brazen defense of dishonesty than his advocacy of the judicious use of violence. The caricature of Machiavelli as a sneaky, conniving fellow, cynically using every tool to further his own ends, comes largely from passages extolling the virtue, or at least efficacy, of deception. But, in fact, Machiavelli himself was the least Machiavellian of men. What has tarnished his reputation is not any dishonesty on his part but excessive candor. Everyone knows that politicians often employ deception, that in fact they could hardly function without resorting from time to time to prevarications, half-truths, and outright lies. Few, however, are so open about this peculiar tool of statecraft as the Second Chancellor of Florence, whose reputation as an evil man is due in large part to admitting what everyone knows to be true.

  Valentino’s great gift was to be able to play the fox as convincingly as the lion. If his foes were equally violent men, they were no match when it came to saying one thing while intending to do the opposite. “Sweetly this basilisk whistled,” Machiavelli wrote, as good a description as any for the hypnotic power Valentino held over lesser men.

  No one believed that Cesare Borgia was a good man, but success had given him an aura that no amount of pious failure could have conferred. After Sinigaglia, Valentino was hailed as the most accomplished military and political figure in Italy. In the few short years since he had shed his cardinal’s scarlet robes, he had compiled a long list of victories on the field of battle, and an equally impressive catalogue of victories won by subterfuge. Now styling himself Cesare Borgia of France, by the grace of God, Duke of Romagna, Valencia, and Urbino, Prince of Andria, Lord of Piombino, Gonfaloniere and Captain-General of the Church, he was approaching the pinnacle of his career.

  From Sinigaglia, Borgia turned south again, heading for Rome to rejoin his father. Along the way, almost as an afterthought, he picked off Perugia, home to Gianpaolo Baglioni (who still remained at large), and harassed Siena. Machiavelli, now thoroughly worn out and homesick, was finally relieved of his duties on January 20, 1503, returning to Florence to pick up the pieces of his interrupted life.

  In Rome, where Valentino returned toward the end of February, the city’s most powerful families were living under a virtual reign of terror as the Pope and his minions tried to squeeze from them every last ducat to fund Cesare’s war machine. Most at risk were those with the deepest pockets, in particular the cardinals who had paid handsomely for their offices and now were lucky to escape with their lives. Membership in the Holy College was for sale to the highest bidder, and upon the death of one of these princes of the Church—a misfortune that often seemed closely to follow an invitation to dine at the papal table—the Pope’s men would swoop in and confiscate all the deceased’s worldly possessions. All but the poorest citizens trembled, “every moment thinking to see the executioner standing behind him.”

  On the evening of August 5, 1503, Pope Alexander and his son, hoping to escape the heat and dust of the city, made an excursion to the countryside, where they dined at a vineyard belonging to Cardinal Adriano Castellesi. Shortly after returning from the banquet both father and son were stricken with high fevers accompanied by frequent bouts of vomiting. Many jumped to the conclusion that, in an attempt to avoid the fate of so many of his colleagues, Castellesi had slipped poison into his guests’ wine. A more likely explanation is that the Borgias had come down with malarial fever, a common peril in the humid Roman summer. While Valentino lay barely conscious in his rooms, the seventy-two-year-old Pope clung to life for almost two weeks, periodically bled and purged by his doctors, before finally succumbing.

  Even before his father was laid to rest in his tomb, the apparently solid edifice of Valentino’s realm began to crumble. Like all those before him who had tried to convert papal kinship into political power, Cesare Borgia had in fact built on sand. Without the legitimacy conferred by the Holy Father, he had no real claim to the lands seized in his name. Under Alexander’s aegis, any brutal act could be forgiven, any conquest justified as a legitimate imposition of papal authority. Without that protective mantle the limitations of
such a shortsighted policy were revealed. In his ruthless climb Valentino had made a host of enemies who were only awaiting the first sign of weakness to strike back.

  As full of vigor as Alexander had been in life, in death his cadaver decayed with unheard of speed as if all the sins he had committed were eating him from the inside. Nature herself seemed to have turned against the Pope. A stench of corruption rose from his body and wafted through the halls of the Vatican, despite the best efforts of the papal master of ceremonies, Johannes Burchardus, to make him presentable for burial. The Pope’s face, he recalled, “had changed to the color of blackest cloth, and [was] covered in blue-black spots; the nose was swollen, the mouth distended, the tongue bent back double . . . the face was more horrifying than anything ever seen.”

  Though still gravely ill, the resourceful Valentino tried desperately to salvage something from the wreckage. From his sickbed he dispatched his most trusted servant, Miguel de Corella, to the Pope’s apartments, where Corella held a knife to Cardinal Casanova’s throat until he agreed to hand over the keys to the papal strongboxes. Hauling coin, jewels, and silver worth more than 100,000 ducats, Valentino and a small band of loyalists fled to the security of the Castel Sant’ Angelo, and then—as the surviving Orsini descended upon the city to exact their revenge—to his castle of Nepi, in the hills north of Rome. There he hoped to recuperate and ride out what promised to be a tumultuous few months.

  Among those bitter enemies who flocked to Rome upon hearing of Alexander’s death was the formidable Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV. He had been among those who had challenged Rodrigo Borgia in the conclave of 1492 that elevated the Spanish cardinal to the papal throne, and he had compounded this indiscretion by calling for an investigation into the bribes that had secured the Pope’s election.iii For the last ten years he had been living in self-imposed exile in France in an effort to escape those unfortunate accidents that claimed so many of his colleagues. With his rival now dead, Giuliano hurried to Rome to seize the prize denied to him once before by the despised Borgia.

  The conclave of thirty-eight cardinals that gathered in September proved hopelessly deadlocked, as the traditional rivalry between the Spanish and French factions was exacerbated by events outside the Vatican. The Treaty of Granada that had divided the kingdom of Naples between France and Spain had broken down, and now the two most fearsome armies of Europe were heading toward a climactic struggle that would go a long way toward determining supremacy on the Italian peninsula. What happened in the conclave might well tip the balance to one or the other of the two contending powers. After six days of fruitless argument, made all the more contentious by the sweltering, overcrowded rooms, the cardinals’ choice fell to the sixty-four-year-old Cardinal Francesco Todeschini, nephew of the Sienese Pope Pius II. Though widely respected for his piety and patronage of the arts, his virtues counted less than the obvious fact that he was a dying man. This made him particularly acceptable to della Rovere, who, once he determined that the Spanish cabal would block his nomination at any cost, concluded that the aging and ailing Todeschini possessed just the actuarial qualifications he required if he were to consolidate his position. Crowned on October 8 and taking the name Pius III, in honor of his uncle, the gout-ridden Pontiff was too feeble to make the traditional pilgrimage to the Lateran basilica.

  In the months following Alexander’s death Valentino’s empire disintegrated. First the territories adjoining Rome broke free; those in the Romagna, well governed for the most part as Machiavelli noted, remained more steadfast, though it was clear that they, too, would revert to their former allegiances unless Valentino could quickly reassert his dominance. He had ruled by fear and intimidation, but without the resources of the papacy behind him he seemed a far less formidable adversary. Realizing he could accomplish nothing in rustic Nepi, he returned to Rome in October as the first step in rebuilding his fortunes.

  But with the Orsini once again in their Roman palaces, Giuliano della Rovere consolidating his support within the College of Cardinals, and the current Pope on his deathbed, friends of Valentino were hard to find. On October 18, less than a month after being elevated to the Throne of Saint Peter, Pope Pius III did what was expected of him and breathed his last. This time Giuliano della Rovere was ready. Though he was already the preferred candidate of the French contingent, he now set about securing the allegiance of the powerful Spanish faction. Showing the remarkable tactical flexibility that would later earn the praise of Machiavelli, he paid a call on Valentino, promising that if he threw the support of the Spanish delegation behind his candidacy, della Rovere would retain the Duke’s services as captain-general of the Church. In addition, he would and agree to marry off his nephew, Francesco Maria della Rovere, the current prefect of Rome, to Valentino’s daughter. Not surprisingly, given the weakness of his position, Valentino eagerly accepted the terms. It is difficult to see how he could have done otherwise, though Machiavelli believed he had made a fundamental strategic blunder: “[H]e should never have allowed any cardinal he had offended, or who had reason to fear him, to become pope, for men lash out through fear or hatred.” On October 31, in a five-hour conclave that must have been close to a record of brevity for meetings usually marked by long-winded speeches and the exchange of cash in the latrines, Giuliano della Rovere was elected Pope, taking the name Julius II.

  Machiavelli was again on hand to witness these dramatic events. Upon learning of the old Pope’s death, the government had dispatched him to Rome to attend to Florentine interests at this critical juncture. As usual, Machiavelli set out in high spirits. Happy as he had been to return to Florence after months away at Valentino’s court, he was just as happy to leave again for a new adventure in the Eternal City. Always restless, he was especially eager to get away because of the petty bickering in the Palazzo della Signoria, which made him despair for his country. The one significant result of his months in Florence was a brief document titled “Some words to be spoken on the matter of raising revenue, after a brief preamble and a few words of excuse.” Written in response to the outcry sparked by Piero Soderini’s attempts to raise revenues for the republic’s armed forces, the speech—probably meant to be delivered by the Gonfaloniere himself in front of the Great Council—captures Machiavelli’s passionate patriotism and his disdain for those who would sacrifice their freedom for a few florins. “[A]t present,” he said,

  you are incapable of defending your subjects, and you stand between two or three cities, desiring your ruin rather than your preservation . . . . Remember, at all events, that one cannot always use another’s sword, and therefore it were well to keep your own in readiness . . . . For I tell you that fortune will not help those who will not help themselves; nor will heaven itself sustain a thing that is determined to fall. But beholding you free Florentines, with your liberty in your own hands, I will not believe that you desire to fall. For surely I must believe that men born free, and wishing to remain free, will have due respect for liberty!

  This harangue, reminiscent of those stirring orations recorded by Livy and Thucydides, shows Machiavelli at his best—a committed republican, blasting his compatriots for their selfishness while their country is starved of the means to defend itself. This episode provides a stark contrast to those infamous passages of The Prince where he advocates violence, treachery, and deceit in the name of expedience. But while the tone is different, the motivation is very much the same. Machiavelli’s first priority is, as always, the preservation and prosperity of the state; anything that interferes with that—greed and excessive piety alike robbing the nation of much needed vigor—should be resisted by every means possible.

  Machiavelli arrived in Rome on October 27, just in time to witness the final machinations leading to the elevation of Giuliano della Rovere to the papal throne. Machiavelli’s appointment to this important post—he was addressed in correspondence as “Florentine Secretary and Envoy to the Supreme Pontiff in Rome”—was a testament to Soderini�
�s increasing trust in his friend. The first order of business when he arrived at Julius’s Vatican apartments was to alert the new Pontiff to the dangers of Venetian expansion in the north. The Most Serene Republic, Machiavelli explained, was at this very moment taking advantage of the collapse of Valentino’s empire to scoop up any state that had been shaken loose, much to the chagrin of the Florentines, who had no wish to see one imperial master replaced by another with even greater resources. Julius was sympathetic, not out of any love for the republic, but because the territories coveted by the Venetians rightfully belonged to the Church.

  In Rome, Machiavelli plunged headlong into the kind of balance-of-power politics perfected in Renaissance Italy, where the rise of any one state provoked hasty alliances among all the others to prevent their rival from dominating the peninsula. It was a world of shifting loyalties and sharp betrayals, where today’s friend was tomorrow’s foe, and where treaties were obsolete before the ink had dried. To that growing class of men who had the difficult job of steering the craft of state through dangerous shoals and unpredictable currents, maneuverability and a sharp-eyed focus on the near at hand succeeded where keeping one’s vision fixed on a distant star would lead to disaster. Machiavelli was the first philosopher to speak for these professional diplomats, men without illusions who trafficked in temporary expedients rather than grand abstractions.