Machiavelli, Volume I eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 456 pages of information about Machiavelli, Volume I.

Machiavelli, Volume I eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 456 pages of information about Machiavelli, Volume I.
that would maintain a State of different Language and conditions.  King Lewis was brought into Italy by the Venetians ambition, who would have gotten for their shares half the State of Lombardy:  I will not blame his comming, or the course he took, because he had a mind to begin to set a foot in Italy; but having not any friends in the country, all gates being barred against him, by reason of King Charles his carriage there, he was constrained to joyn friendship with those he could; and this consideration well taken, would have proved lucky to him, when in the rest of his courses he had not committed any error.  The King then having conquered Lombardy, recovered presently all that reputation that Charles had lost him; Genua yeelded to him, the Florentines became friends with him; the Marquess of Mantua, the Duke of Ferrara, the Bentivolti, the Lady of Furli, the Lord of Faenza, Pesaro Rimino, Camerino, and Piombino, the Lucheses, Pisans and Sienses, every one came and offered him friendship:  then might the Venetians consider the rashness of the course they had taken, who, only to get into their hands two Townes in Lombardy, made the King Lord of two thirds in Italy.  Let any man now consider with how small difficulty could the King have maintained his reputation in Italy, if he had followed these aforenamed rules, and secured and defended those his friends, who because their number was great, and they weak and fearful, some of the Church, and others of the Venetians were alwaies forced to hold with him, and by their means he might easily have been able to secure himself against those that were mightiest:  but he was no sooner got into Milan, than he took a quite wrong course, by giving ayd to Pope Alexander, to seize upon Romania, and perceiv’d not that by this resolution he weakned himself, ruining his own friends, and those had cast themselves into his bosom, making the Church puissant, by adding to their Spiritual power, they gaind their authority, and so much temporal estate.  And having once got out of the way, he was constrained to go on forward; insomuch as to stop Alexanders ambition, and that he should not become Lord of all Tuscany, of force he was to come into Italy:  and this sufficed him not, to have made the Church mighty, and taken away his own friends; but for the desire he had to get the Kingdome of Naples, he divided it with the King of Spain:  and where before he was the sole arbitre of Italy, he brought in a competitor, to the end that all the ambitious persons of that country, and all that were ill affected to him, might have otherwhere to make their recourse:  and whereas he might have left in that Kingdome some Vice-King of his own, he took him from thence, to place another there, that might afterward chace him thence.  It is a thing indeed very natural and ordinary, to desire to be of the getting hand:  and alwaies when men undertake it, if they can effect it, they shall be prais’d for it, or at least not blam’d:  but when they are not able, and yet will undertake
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Machiavelli, Volume I from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.