to such
greatness, seeing that till the time of Alexander the sixt, the Italian
Potentates, and not only they who are entituled the potentates, but
every Baron and Lord though of the meanest condition in regard of the
temporality, made but small account of it; and now a King of France
trembles at the power thereof; and it hath been able to drive him out of
Italy, and ruine the Venetians; and however this be well known, me
thinks it is not superstitious in some part to recall it to memory.
Before that Charles King of France past into Italy, this countrey was
under the rule of the Pope, Venetians, the King of Naples, the Duke of
Milan, and the Florentines. These Potentates took two things principally
to their care; the one, that no forreiner should invade Italy; the other
that no one of them should inlarge their State. They, against whom this
care was most taken, were the Pope and the Venetians; and to restrain
the Venetians, there needed the union of all the rest, as it was in the
defence of Ferrara; and to keep the Pope low, they served themselves of
the Barons of Rome, who being divided into two factions, the Orsini and
Colonnesi, there was alwaies occasion of offence between them, who
standing ready with their armes in hand in the view of the Pope, held
the Popedome weak and feeble: and however sometimes there arose a
couragious Pope, as was Sextus; yet either his fortune, or his wisdome
was not able to free him of these incommodities, and the brevity of
their lives was the cause thereof; for in ten years, which time, one
with another, Popes ordinarily liv'd, with much ado could they bring low
one of the factions. And if, as we may say, one had near put out the
Colonnesi, there arose another enemy to the Orsini, who made them grow
again, so that there was never time quite to root them out. This then
was the cause, why the Popes temporal power was of small esteem in
Italy; there arose afterwards Pope Alexander the sixt, who of all the
Popes that ever were, shewed what a Pope was able to do with money and
forces: and he effected, by means of his instrument, Duke Valentine, and
by the ocasion of the French mens passage, all those things which I have
formerly discoursed upon in the Dukes actions: and however his purpose
was nothing at all to inlarge the Church dominions, but to make the Duke
great; yet what he did, turnd to the Churches advantage, which after his
death when the Duke was taken away, was the heir of all his