In the autumn of 1500, fretting to take the field again, Cesare was
occupied in raising and equipping an army--an occupation which received
an added stimulus when, towards the end of August, Louis de Villeneuve,
the French ambassador, arrived in Rome with the articles of agreement
setting forth the terms upon which Louis XII was prepared further
to assist Cesare in the resumption of his campaign. In these it was
stipulated that, in return for such assistance, Cesare should engage
himself, on his side, to aid the King of France in the conquest of
Naples when the time for that expedition should be ripe. Further, Loius
XII was induced to make representations to Venice to the end that the
Republic should remove her protection from the Manfredi of Faenza and
the Malatesta of Rimini.
Venice being at the time in trouble with the Turk, and more anxious than
ever to conciliate France and the Pope, was compelled to swallow her
reluctance and submit with the best grace she could assume. Accordingly
she dispatched her ambassadors to Rome to convey her obedience to the
Pope’s Holiness, and formally to communicate the news that she withdrew
her protection from the proscribed fiefs.
Later in the year--in the month of October--the Senate was to confer
upon Cesare Borgia the highest honour in her gift, the honour of which
the Venetians were jealous above all else--the honour of Venetian
citizenship, inscribing his name in the Golden Book, bestowing upon him
a palace in Venice and conferring the other marks of distinction usual
to the occasion. One is tempted to ask, Was it in consequence of
Paolo Capello’s lurid Relation that the proud Republic considered him
qualified for such an honour?
To return, however, to the matter of the Republic’s removal of her
shield from Rimini and Faenza, Alexander received the news of this with
open joy and celebrated it with festivities in the Vatican, whilst from
being angry with Venice and from declaring that the Republic need never
again look to him for favour, he now veered round completely and assured
the Venetian envoys, in a burst of gratitude, that he esteemed no Power
in the world so highly. Cesare joined in his father’s expressions
of gratitude and appreciation, and promised that Alexander should be
succeeded in St. Peter’s Chair by such a Pope as should be pleasing to
Venice, and that, if the cardinals but remained united, the Pontificate
should go to none but a Venetian.
Thus did Cesare, sincerely or otherwise, attempt to lessen the
Republic’s chagrin to see him ride lance-on-thigh as conqueror into the
dominions which she so long had coveted.
France once more placed Yves d’Allègre at Cesare’s disposal, and with
him went six hundred lances and six hundred Swiss foot. These swelled
the forces which already Cesare had assembled into an army some ten
thousand strong. The artillery was under the command of Vitellozzo
Vitelli, whilst Bartolomeo da Capranica was appointed camp-master.
Cesare’s banner was joined by a condotta under Paolo Orsini--besides
whom there were several Roman gentlemen in the duke’s following,
including most of those who had formed his guard of honour on the
occasion of his visit to France, and who had since then continued to
follow his fortunes. Achille Tiberti came to Rome with a condotta which
he had levied in the Romagna of young men who had been moved by Cesare’s
spreading fame to place their swords at his disposal. A member of the
exiled Malvezzi family of Bologna headed a little troop of fellow-exiles
which came to take service with the duke, whilst at Perugia a strong
body of foot awaited him under Gianpaolo Baglioni.
In addition to these condotte, numerous were the adventurers who came
to offer Cesare their swords; indeed he must have possessed much of that
personal magnetism which is the prime equipment of every born leader,
for he stirred men to the point of wild enthusiasm in those days,
and inspired other than warriors to bear arms for him. We see men of
letters, such as Justolo, Calmeta, Sperulo, and others throwing
down their quills to snatch up swords and follow him. Painters, and
sculptors, too, are to be seen abandoning the ideals of art to pursue
the ugly realities of war in this young condottiero’s train. Among these
artists, bulks the great Pietro Torrigiani. The astounding pen of his
brother-sculptor, Benvenuto Cellini, has left us a sharp portrait of
this man, in which he speaks of his personal beauty and tells us that
he had more the air of a great soldier than a sculptor (which must have
been, we fancy, Cellini’s own case). Torrigiani lives in history chiefly
for two pieces of work widely dissimilar in character--the erection
of the tomb of Henry VII of England, and the breaking of the nose of
Michelangelo Buonarroti in the course of a quarrel which he had with him
in Florence when they were fellow-students under Masaccio. Of nothing
that he ever did in life was he so proud--as we may gather from
Cellini--as of having disfigured Michelangelo, and in that sentiment the
naïve spirit of his age again peeps forth.
We shall also see Leonardo da Vinci joining the duke’s army as
engineer--but that not until some months later.
Meanwhile his forces grew daily in Rome, and his time was consumed in
organizing, equipping, and drilling these, to bring about that perfect
unity for which his army was to be conspicuous in spite of the variety
of French, Italian, Spanish, and Swiss elements of which it was
composed. So effectively were his troops armed and so excellent was the
discipline prevailing among them, that their like had probably never
before been seen in the peninsula, and they were to excite--as much
else of Cesare’s work--the wonder and admiration of that great critic
Macchiavelli.
So much, however, was not to be achieved without money, and still more
would be needed for the campaign ahead. For this the Church provided.
Never had the coffers of the Holy See been fuller than at this moment.
Additional funds accrued from what is almost universally spoken of as
“the sale of twelve cardinals’ hats.”
In that year--in September--twelve new cardinals were appointed, and
upon each of those was levied, as a tax, a tithe of the first year’s
revenues of the benefices upon which they entered. The only justifiable
exception that can be taken to this lies in the number of cardinals
elected at one time, which lends colour to the assumption that the
sole aim of that election was to raise additional funds for Cesare’s
campaign. Probably it was also Alexander’s aim further to strengthen his
power with the Sacred College, so that he could depend upon a majority
to ensure his will in all matters. But we are at the moment concerned
with the matter of the levied tax.
It has been dubbed “an atrocious act of simony;” but the reasoning that
so construes it is none so clear. The cardinals’ hats carried with them
vast benefices. These benefices were the property of the Church; they
were in the gift and bestowal of the Pope, and in the bestowing of them
the Pope levied a proportionate tax. Setting aside the argument that
this tax was not an invention of Alexander’s, does such a proceeding
really amount to a “sale” of benefices? A sale presupposes bargaining, a
making of terms between two parties, an adjusting of a price to be paid.
There is evidence of no such marketing of these benefices; indeed one
cardinal, vowed to poverty, received his hat without the imposition of a
tax, another was Cesare’s brother-in-law, Amanieu d’Albret, who had been
promised the hat a year ago. It is further to be borne in mind that,
four months earlier, the Pope had levied a similar decima, or tax, upon
the entire College of Cardinals and every official in the service of the
Holy See, for the purposes of the expedition against the Muslim, who was
in arms against Christianity. Naturally that tax was not popular with
luxurious, self-seeking, cinquecento prelates, who in the main
cared entirely for their own prosperity and not at all for that of
Christianity, and you may realize how, by levying it, Alexander laid
himself open to harsh criticism.
The only impugnable matter in the deed lies, as has been said, in the
number of cardinals so created at a batch. But the ends to be served
may be held to justify, if not altogether, at least in some measure,
the means adopted. The Romagna war for which the funds were needed was
primarily for the advancement of the Church, to expunge those faithless
vicars who, appointed by the Holy See and holding their fiefs in trust
for her, refused payment of just tribute and otherwise so acted as to
alienate from the Church the States which she claimed for her own. Their
restoration to the Church--however much it might be a means of founding
a Borgia dynasty in the Romagna--made for the greater power and glory of
the Holy See. Let us remember this, and that such was the end which
that tax, levied upon those newly elected cardinals, went to serve. The
aggrandizement of the House of Borgia was certainly one of the results
to be expected from the Romagna campaign, but we are not justified in
accounting it the sole aim and end of that campaign.
Alexander had this advantage over either Sixtus IV or Innocent VIII--not
to go beyond those Popes whom he had served as Vice-Chancellor, for
instances of flagrant nepotism--that he at least served two purposes
at once, and that, in aggrandizing his own family, he strengthened the
temporal power of the Church, whereas those others had done nothing but
undermine it that they might enrich their progeny.
And whilst on this subject of the “sale” of cardinals’ hats, it may not
be amiss to say a word concerning the “sale” of indulgences with which
Alexander has been so freely charged. Here again there has been too loud
an outcry against Alexander--an outcry whose indignant stridency leads
one to suppose that the sale of indulgences was a simony invented by
him, or else practised by him to an extent shamefully unprecedented.
Such is very far from being the case. The arch-type of
indulgence-seller--as of all other simoniacal practices--is Innocent
VIII. In his reign we have seen the murderer commonly given to choose
between the hangman and the purchase of a pardon, and we have seen the
moneys so obtained providing his bastard, the Cardinal Francesco Cibo,
with the means for the luxuriously licentious life whose gross disorders
prematurely killed him.
To no such flagitious lengths as these can it be shown that Alexander
carried the “sale” of the indulgences he dispensed. He had no lack of
precedent for the practice, and, so far as the actual practice itself
is concerned, it would be difficult to show that it was unjustifiable or
simoniacal so long as confined within certain well-defined bounds, and
so long as the sums levied by it were properly employed to the benefit
of Christianity. It is a practice comparable to the mulcting of a civil
offender against magisterial laws. Because our magistrates levy fines,
it does not occur to modern critics to say that they sell pardons
and immunity from gaol. It is universally recognized as a wise and
commendable measure, serving the twofold purpose of punishing the
offender and benefiting the temporal State against which he has
offended. Need it be less commendable in the case of spiritual offences
against a spiritual State? It is more useful than the imposition of the
pattering of a dozen prayers at bedtime, and since, no doubt, it falls
more heavily upon the offender, it possibly makes to an even greater
extent for his spiritual improvement.
Thus considered, this “sale” of indulgences loses a deal of the
heinousness with which it has been invested. The funds so realized go
into the coffers of the Church, which is fit and proper. What afterwards
becomes of them at the hands of Alexander opens up another matter
altogether, one in which we cannot close our eyes to the fact that he
was as undutiful as many another who wore the Ring of the Fisherman
before him. Yet this is to be said for him: that, if he plunged his
hands freely into the treasury of the Holy See, at least he had the
ability to contrive that this treasury should be well supplied; and the
circumstance that, when he died, he left the church far wealthier and
more powerful than she had been for centuries, with her dominions which
his precursors had wantonly alienated reconsolidated into that powerful
State that was to endure for three hundred years, is an argument to the
credit of his pontificate not lightly to be set aside.
Imola and Forli had, themselves, applied to the Pontiff to appoint
Cesare Borgia their ruler in the place of the deposed Riarii. To these
was now added Cesena. In July disturbances occurred there between
Guelphs and Ghibellines. Swords were drawn and blood flowed in the
streets, until the governor was constrained to summon Ercole Bentivogli
and his horse from Forli to quell the rioting. The direct outcome of
this was that--the Ghibellines predominating in council--Cesena sent an
embassy to Rome to beg his Holiness to give the lordship of the fief
to the Duke of Valentinois. To this the Pope acceded, and on August
2 Cesare was duly appointed Lord Vicar of Cesena. He celebrated his
investiture by remitting a portion of the taxes, abolishing altogether
the duty on flour, and by bringing about a peace between the two
prevailing factions.
By the end of September Cesare’s preparations for the resumption of the
campaign were completed, and early in October (his army fortified in
spirit by the Pope’s blessing) he set out, and made his first halt at
Nepi. Lucrezia was there, with her Court and her child Roderigo, having
withdrawn to this her castle to mourn her dead husband Alfonso; and
there she abode until recalled to Rome by her father some two months
later.
Thence Cesare pushed on, as swiftly as the foul weather would allow him,
by way of Viterbo, Assisi, and Nocera to cross the Apennines at Gualdo.
Here he paused to demand the release of certain prisoners in the hill
fortress of Fossate, and to be answered by a refusal. Angered by this
resistance of his wishes and determined to discourage others from
following the example of Fossate, he was swift and terrible in his
rejoinder. He seized the Citadel, and did by force what had been refused
to his request. Setting at liberty the prisoners in durance there, he
gave the territory over to devastation by fire and pillage.
That done he resumed his march, but the weather retarded him more and
more. The heavy and continuous rains had reduced the roads to such a
condition that his artillery fell behind, and he was compelled to call
a halt once more, at Deruta, and wait there four days for his guns to
overtake him.
In Rimini the great House of Malatesta was represented by
Pandolfo--Roberto Malatesta’s bastard and successor--a degenerate so
detested by his subjects that he was known by the name of Pandolfaccio
(a contumelious augmentative, expressing the evil repute in which he was
held).
Among his many malpractices and the many abuses to which he resorted
for the purposes of extorting money from his long-suffering subjects
was that of compelling the richer men of Rimini to purchase from him the
estates which he confiscated from the fuorusciti--those who had sought
in exile safety from the anger provoked by their just resentment of his
oppressive misrule. He was in the same case as other Romagna tyrants,
and now that Venice had lifted from him her protecting aegis, he had no
illusions as to the fate in store for him. So when once more the
tramp of Cesare Borgia’s advancing legions rang through the Romagna,
Pandolfaccio disposed himself, not for battle, but for surrender on the
best terms that he might succeed in making.
He was married to Violante, the daughter of Giovanni Bentivogli of
Bologna, and in the first week of October he sent her, with their
children, to seek shelter at her father’s Court. Himself, he withdrew
into his citadel--the famous fortress of his terrible grandfather
Sigismondo. The move suggested almost that he was preparing to resist
the Duke of Valentinois, and it may have prompted the message sent him
by the Council to inquire what might be his intention.
Honour was a thing unknown to this Pandolfaccio--even so much honour
as may be required for a dignified retreat. Since all was lost it but
remained--by his lights--to make the best bargain that he could and get
the highest possible price in gold for what he was abandoning. So he
replied that the Council must do whatever it considered to its best
advantage, whilst to anticipate its members in any offer of surrender,
and thus seek the favour and deserve good terms at the hands of this
man who came to hurl him from the throne of his family, he dispatched a
confidential servant to Cesare to offer him town and citadel.
In the meantime--as Pandolfo fully expected--the Council also sent
proposals of surrender to Cesare, as well as to his lieutenant-general
of Romagna, Bishop Olivieri, at Cesena. The communications had the
effect of bringing Olivieri immediately to Rimini, and there, on October
10, the articles of capitulation were signed by the bishop, as the
duke’s representative, and by Pandolfo Malatesta. It was agreed in these
that Malatesta should have safe-conduct for himself and his familiars,
3,000 ducats and the value--to be estimated--of the artillery which he
left in the citadel. Further, for the price of 5,500 ducats he abandoned
also the strongholds of Sarsina and Medola and the castles of the
Montagna.
His tyranny thus disposed of, Pandolfaccio took ship to Ravenna, where
the price of his dishonour was to be paid him, and in security for
which he took with him Gianbattista Baldassare, the son of the ducal
commissioner.
On the day of his departure, to celebrate the bloodless conquest of
Rimini, solemn High Mass was sung in the Cathedral, and Bishop Olivieri
received the city’s oath of allegiance to the Holy See, whither very
shortly afterwards Rimini sent her ambassadors to express to the Pope
her gratitude for her release from the thraldom of Pandolfaccio.
Like Rimini, Pesaro too fell without the striking of a blow, for all
that it was by no means as readily relinquished on the part of its
ruler. Giovanni Sforza had been exerting himself desperately for the
past two months to obtain help that should enable him to hold his
tyranny against the Borgia might. But all in vain. His entreaties to the
emperor had met with no response, whilst his appeal to Francesco Gonzaga
of Mantua--whose sister, it will be remembered, had been his first
wife--had resulted in the Marquis’s sending him a hundred men under an
Albanian, named Giacopo.
What Giovanni was to do with a hundred men it is difficult to conceive,
nor are the motives of Gonzaga’s action clear. We know that at this time
he was eagerly seeking Cesare’s friendship, sorely uneasy as to the
fate that might lie in store for his own dominions, once the Duke of
Valentinois should have disposed of the feudatories of the Church. Early
in that year 1500 he had asked Cesare to stand godfather for his child,
and Cesare had readily consented, whereby a certain bond of relationship
and good feeling had been established between them, which everything
shows Gonzaga most anxious to preserve unsevered. The only reasonable
conclusion in the matter of that condotta of a hundred men is that
Gonzaga desired to show friendliness to the Lord of Pesaro, yet was
careful not to do so to any extent that might be hurtful to Valentinois.
As for Giovanni Sforza of whom so many able pens have written so
feelingly as the constant, unfortunate victim of Borgia ambition, there
is no need to enter into analyses for the purpose of judging him here.
His own subjects did so in his own day. When a prince is beloved by all
classes of his people, it must follow that he is a good prince and a
wise ruler; when his subjects are divided into two factions, one to
oppose and the other to support him, he may be good or bad, or good
and bad; but when a prince can find none to stand by him in the hour of
peril, it is to be concluded that he has deserved little at the hands of
those whom he has ruled. The latter is the case of Giovanni Sforza--this
prince whom, Yriarte tells us, “rendered sweet the lives of his
subjects.” The nobility and the proletariate of Pesaro abhorred him;
the trader classes stood neutral, anxious to avoid the consequences of
partisanship, since it was the class most exposed to those consequences.
On Sunday, October 11--the day after Pandolfo Malatesta had relinquished
Rimini--news reached Pesaro that Ercole Bentivogli’s horse was marching
upon the town, in advance of the main body of Cesare’s army. Instantly
there was an insurrection against Giovanni, and the people, taking
to arms, raised the cry of “Duca!” in acclamation of the Duke of
Valentinois, under the very windows of their ruler’s palace.
Getting together the three hundred men that constituted his army,
Giovanni beat a hasty retreat to Pesaro’s magnificent fortress, and that
same night he secretly took ship to Ravenna accompanied by the Albanian
Giacopo, and leaving his half-brother, Galeazzo Sforza di Cotignola,
in command of the citadel. Thence Giovanni repaired to Bologna, and,
already repenting his precipitate flight, he appealed for help to
Bentivogli, who was himself uneasy, despite the French protection
he enjoyed. Similarly, Giovanni addressed fresh appeals to Francesco
Gonzaga; but neither of these tyrants could or dared avail him, and,
whilst he was still imploring their intervention his fief had fallen
into Cesare’s power.
Ercole Bentivogli, with a small body of horse, had presented himself at
the gates of Pesaro on October 21, and Galeazzo Sforza, having obtained
safe-conduct for the garrison, surrendered.
Cesare, meanwhile, was at Fano, where he paused to allow his army to
come up with him, for he had outridden it from Fossate, through foul
wintry weather, attended only by his light horse. It was said that
he hoped that Fano might offer itself to him as other fiefs had done,
and--if Pandolfo Collenuccio is correct--he had been counselled by the
Pope not to attempt to impose himself upon Fano, but to allow the town
a free voice in the matter. If his hopes were as stated, he was
disappointed in them, for Fano made no offer to him, and matters
remained for the present as they were.
On the 27th, with the banners of the bull unfurled, he rode into Pesaro
at the head of two thousand men, making his entrance with his wonted
pomp, of whose dramatic values he was so fully aware. He was met at the
gates by the Council, which came to offer him the keys of the town, and,
despite the pouring rain under which he entered the city, the people of
Pesaro thronged the streets to acclaim him as he rode.
He took up his lodgings at the Sforza Palace, so lately vacated by
Giovanni--the palace where Lucrezia Borgia had held her Court when, as
Giovanni’s wife, she had been Countess of Pesaro and Cotignola. Early on
the morrow he visited the citadel, which was one of the finest in Italy,
rivalling that of Rimini for strength. On his arrival there, a flourish
of trumpets imposed silence, while the heralds greeted him formally as
Lord of Pesaro. He ordered one of the painters in his train to draw up
plans of the fortress to be sent to the Pope, and issued instructions
for certain repairs and improvements which he considered desirable.
Here in Pesaro came to him the famous Pandolfo Collenuccio, as envoy
from the Duke of Ferrara, to congratulate Cesare upon the victory.
In sending Collenuccio at such a time Ercole d’Este paid the Duke of
Valentinois a subtle, graceful compliment. This distinguished poet,
dramatist, and historian was a native of Pesaro who had been exiled ten
years earlier by Giovanni--which was the tyrant’s way of showing his
gratitude to the man who, more than any other, had contributed to
the bastard Sforza’s succession to his father as Lord of Pesaro and
Cotignola.
Collenuccio was one of the few literary men of his day who was not above
using the Italian tongue, treating it seriously as a language and not
merely as a debased form of Latin. He was eminent as a jurisconsult,
and, being a man of action as well as a man of letters, he had filled
the office of Podestá in various cities; he had found employment under
Lorenzo dei Medici, and latterly under Ercole d’Este, whom we now see
him representing.
Cesare received him with all honour, sending the master of his
household, Ramiro de Lorqua, to greet him on his arrival and to bear
him the usual gifts of welcome, of barley, wine, capons, candles,
sweet-meats, etc., whilst on the morrow the duke gave him audience,
treating him in the friendliest manner, as we see from Collenuccio’s
own report to the Duke of Ferrara. In this he says of Cesare: “He is
accounted valiant, joyous, and open-handed, and it is believed that he
holds honest men in great esteem. Harsh in his vengeance, according to
many, he is great of spirit and of ambition, athirst for eminence and
fame.”
Collenuccio was reinstated by Cesare in the possessions of which
Giovanni had stripped him, a matter which so excited the resentment of
the latter that, when ultimately he returned to his dominions, one of
his first acts was to avenge it. Collenuccio, fearing that he might not
stand well with the tyrant, had withdrawn from Pesaro. But Giovanni,
with all semblance of friendliness, treacherously lured him back to cast
him into prison and have him strangled--a little matter which those who,
to the detriment of the Borgia, seek to make a hero of this Giovanni
Sforza, would do well not to suppress.
A proof of the splendid discipline prevailing in Cesare’s army is
afforded during his brief sojourn in Pesaro. In the town itself, some
two thousand of his troops were accommodated, whilst some thousands
more swarmed in the surrounding country. Occupation by such an army was,
naturally enough, cause for deep anxiety on the part of a people who
were but too well acquainted with the ways of the fifteenthcentury
men-at-arms. But here was a general who knew how to curb and control his
soldiers. Under the pain of death his men were forbidden from indulging
any of the predations or violences usual to their kind; and, as a
consequence, the inhabitants of Pesaro had little to complain of.
Justolo gives us a picture of the Duke of Valentinois on the banks of
the River Montone, which again throws into relief the discipline which
his very presence--such was the force of his personality--was able to
enforce. A disturbance arose among his soldiers at the crossing of this
river, which was swollen with rains and the bridge of which had been
destroyed. It became necessary to effect the crossing in one small
boat--the only craft available--and the men, crowding to the bank,
stormed and fought for precedence until the affair grew threatening.
Cesare rode down to the river, and no more than his presence was
necessary to restore peace. Under that calm, cold eye of his the men
instantly became orderly, and, whilst he sat his horse and watched them,
the crossing was soberly effected, and as swiftly as the single craft
would permit.
The duke remained but two days in Pesaro. On the 29th, having appointed
a lieutenant to represent him, and a captain to the garrison, he marched
out again, to lie that night at Cattolica and enter Rimini on the
morrow.
There again he was received with open arms, and he justified the
people’s welcome of him by an immediate organization of affairs which
gave universal satisfaction. He made ample provision for the proper
administration of justice and the preservation of the peace; he recalled
the fuorusciti exiled by the unscrupulous Pandolfaccio, and he saw them
reinstated in the property of which that tyrant had dispossessed them.
As his lieutenant in Rimini, with strict injunctions to preserve law
and order, he left Ramiro de Lorqua, when, on November 2, he departed to
march upon Faenza, which had prepared for resistance.
What Cesare did in Rimini was no more than he was doing throughout the
Romagna, as its various archives bear witness. They bear witness no less
to his vast ability as an administrator, showing how he resolved the
prevailing chaos into form and order by his admirable organization and
suppression of injustice. The same archives show us also that he found
time for deeds of beneficence which endeared him to the people, who
everywhere hailed him as their deliverer from thraldom. It would not be
wise to join in the chorus of those who appear to have taken Cesare’s
altruism for granted. The rejection of the wild stories that picture
him as a corrupt and murderous monster, utterly inhuman, and lay a dozen
ghastly crimes to his account need not entail our viewing Cesare as an
angel of deliverance, a divine agent almost, rescuing a suffering people
from oppression out of sheer humanitarianism.
He is the one as little as the other. He is just--as Collenuccio wrote
to Ercole d’Este--“great of spirit and of ambition, athirst for
eminence and fame.” He was consumed by the desire for power and worldly
greatness, a colossus of egotism to whom men and women were pieces to
be handled by him on the chess-board of his ambition, to be sacrificed
ruthlessly where necessary to his ends, but to be husbanded and guarded
carefully where they could serve him.
With his eyes upon the career of Cesare Borgia, Macchiavelli was anon to
write of principalities newly-acquired, that “however great may be the
military resources of a prince, he will discover that, to obtain firm
footing in a province, he must engage the favour and interest of the
inhabitants.”
That was a principle self-evident to Cesare--the principle upon which
he acted throughout in his conquest of the Romagna. By causing his new
subjects to realize at once that they had exchanged an oppressive for a
generous rule, he attached them to himself.