, as against foreign enemies, he saw
he could not defend them, since this would have required an army kept
constantly in the field. For which reasons he made them be razed to the
ground.

When Pope Julius II. had driven the Bentivogli from Bologna, after
erecting a citadel in that town, he caused the people to be cruelly
oppressed by his governor; whereupon, the people rebelled, and he
forthwith lost the citadel; so that his citadel, and the oppressions to
which it led, were of less service to him than different behaviour
on his part had been. When Niccolo da Castello, the ancestor of the
Vitelli, returned to his country out of exile, he straightway pulled
down the two fortresses built there by Pope Sixtus IV., perceiving that
it was not by fortresses, but by the good-will of the people, that he
could be maintained in his government.

But the most recent, and in all respects most noteworthy instance, and
that which best demonstrates the futility of building, and the advantage
of destroying fortresses, is what happened only the other day in Genoa.
Every one knows how, in 1507, Genoa rose in rebellion against Louis XII.
of France, who came in person and with all his forces to recover it;
and after recovering it built there a citadel stronger than any before
known, being, both from its position and from every other circumstance,
most inaccessible to attack. For standing on the extremity of a hill,
named by the Genoese Codefa, which juts out into the sea, it commanded
the whole harbour and the greater part of the town. But, afterwards, in
the year 1512, when the French were driven out of Italy, the Genoese, in
spite of this citadel, again rebelled, and Ottaviano Fregoso assuming
the government, after the greatest efforts, continued over a period of
sixteen months, at last succeeded in reducing the citadel by famine. By
all it was believed that he would retain it as a rock of refuge in case
of any reverse of fortune, and by some he was advised to do so; but he,
being a truly wise ruler, and knowing well that it is by the attachment
of their subjects and not by the strength of their fortifications that
princes are maintained in their governments, dismantled this citadel;
and founding his authority, not upon material defences, but on his own
valour and prudence, kept and still keeps it. And whereas, formerly,
a force of a thousand foot-soldiers could effect a change in the
government of Genoa, the enemies of Ottaviano have as