BORGIAS

A.D. 1502

NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI

The commencement of the sixteenth century found Italy suffering from the
foreign interference of France and Spain. The chief Italian states at
this period were the kingdom of Naples, the Papal States, the duchy of
Milan, and the republics of Venice, Florence, and Genoa. Ferdinand V of
Aragon and Louis XII of France, who had hereditary claims through his
grandmother Valentina Visconti, had concluded a secret and perfidious
treaty for the partition of the kingdom of Naples, the effects of which
Frederick II, the King, vainly sought to avert. They conquered Naples in
1501, but disagreed over the division of the spoil, and, the French
army being defeated by the Spanish on the Garigliano in 1503, Spanish
influence soon after became dominant in Italy.

In the march of the French army on Naples in 1501, the French commander
had for lieutenant Caesar Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, whose career
furnishes a vivid illustration of the internal conditions of Italy at
this period. Borgia, who had resigned from the cardinalate conferred on
him by his father, had been created Duke of Valentinois by the King of
France, had married the daughter of the King of Navarre, and was invested
with the duchy of Romagna by his father in 1501.

By force and treachery he reduced the cities of Romagna, which were
ruled by feudatories of the papal see, and, with the assistance of his
relations, endeavored to found an independent hereditary power in Central
Italy.

The contemporaneous account of these events, by the celebrated Niccolo
Machiavelli, possesses a fascinating interest, which is greatly enhanced
by the fact that Machiavelli himself was a participant in the events of
which he writes.

A Florentine by birth, Machiavelli was sent by his fellow-citizens, in
1502, on a mission to Borgia, who had just returned from a visit to the
King of France in Lombardy. During Borgia's absence, friends and former
colleagues, alarmed at his ambition and cruelty, had entered into a
league with his enemies, and invited the Florentines to join them.
The Florentines refused, but sent Machiavelli to make professions of
friendship and offers of assistance to the Duke, and at the same time to
watch his movements, to discover his real intentions, and endeavor to
obtain something in return for their friendship. Borgia, who had the
reputation of being the closest man of his age, had to deal with a
negotiator who, tho