[Sidenote:  Caesar Borgia.]

In the manner of the day Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, and Theseus are led across the stage in illustration.  The common attribute of all such fortunate masters of men was force of arms, while the mission of an unarmed prophet such as Savonarola was foredoomed to failure.  In such politics Machiavelli is positive and ruthless:  force is and must be the remedy and the last appeal, a principle which indeed no later generation has in practice set at naught.  But in the hard dry eyes of the Florentine Secretary stood, above all others, one shining figure, a figure to all other eyes, from then till now, wrapped in mysterious and miasmatic cloud.  In the pages of common history he was a tyrant, he was vicious beyond compare, he was cruel beyond the Inquisition, he was false beyond the Father of Lies, he was the Antichrist of Rome and he was a failure:  but he was the hero of Niccolo Machiavelli, who, indeed, found in Caesar Borgia the fine flower of Italian politics in the Age of the Despots.  Son of the Pope, a Prince of the Church, a Duke of France, a master of events, a born soldier, diplomatist, and more than half a statesman, Caesar seemed indeed the darling of gods and men whom original fortune had crowned with inborn ability.  Machiavelli knew him as well as it was possible to know a soul so tortuous and secret, and he had been present at the most critical and terrible moments of Caesar’s life.  That in despite of a life which the world calls infamous, in despite of the howling execrations of all Christendom, in despite of ultimate and entire failures, Machiavelli could still write years after, ’I know not what lessons I could teach a new Prince more useful than the example of his actions,’ exhibits the ineffaceable impressions that Caesar Borgia had made upon the most subtle and observant mind of modern history.

[Sidenote:  Caesar’s Career.]

Caesar was the acknowledged son of Pope Alexander by his acknowledged mistress Vannozza dei Cattani.  Born in 1472, he was an Archbishop and a Cardinal at sixteen, and the murderer of his elder brother at an age when modern youths are at college.  He played his part to the full in the unspeakable scandals of the Vatican, but already ’he spoke little and people feared him.’  Ere long the splendours of the Papacy seemed too remote and uncertain for his fierce ambition, and, indeed, through his father, he already wielded both the temporal and the spiritual arms of Peter.  To the subtlety of the Italian his Spanish blood had lent a certain stern resolution, and as with Julius and Sulla the lust for sloth and sensuality were quickened by the lust for sway.  He unfrocked himself with pleasure.  He commenced politician, soldier, and despot.  And for the five years preceding Alexander’s death he may almost be looked upon as a power in Europe.  Invested Duke of Romagna, that hot-bed of petty tyranny and tumult, he repressed disorder through his governor Messer Ramiro with a relentless hand.  When order reigned, Machiavelli tells us he walked out one morning into the market-place at Cesena and saw the body of Ramiro, who had borne the odium of reform, lying in two pieces with his head on a lance, and a bloody axe by his side.  Caesar reaped the harvest of Ramiro’s severity, and the people recognising his benevolence and justice were ‘astounded and satisfied.’