Italy

Italy is the central geographical and political theatre of the book’s argument. It appears not as a unified state but as a vulnerable collection of provinces, powers, and competing authorities, repeatedly entered by foreign rulers and exposed to internal division. Its history supplies the clearest demonstration of how conquest can be won rapidly yet lost through faulty administration, and its degradation finally becomes the condition from which the book imagines an Italian deliverer might arise.

Political Geography and the Problem of Conquest

Italy is treated as a country in which possession has never guaranteed control. France’s experience illustrates the danger: Louis XII of France gained Milan swiftly and then lost it just as swiftly. On the first occasion, Ludovico Sforza was able to recover Milan with forces of his own after the population, disappointed in the French promises, turned against the insolence of its new ruler. Once a rebellion had been suppressed, however, the conqueror could punish the guilty, investigate the suspected, and strengthen vulnerable points; consequently, the second recovery of Milan required a general European effort, with French armies destroyed and driven from Italy. Even after that, Milan was lost again, showing that the first causes of failure were only part of the problem.

The broader lesson is that Italy is a testing ground for the government of acquired territory. A province attached to an existing dominion is easier to retain when its language and customs resemble those of the conqueror’s homeland, especially if it has not lived under freedom. In such cases, the old ruling line must be extinguished, while laws and taxes should remain substantially unchanged so that the new possession can become incorporated into the hereditary state. The contrast is sharper when language, usages, and laws differ. Then the ruler must either reside in the province, establish colonies, or maintain an expensive military presence, while protecting weaker neighbours, weakening stronger powers, and preventing an equally formidable foreign power from entering.

Foreign Rule and Institutional Fracture

The book’s treatment of Italy depends on the interaction between local institutions and external intervention. A newly acquired city accustomed to its own laws and freedom can be handled only through destruction, personal residence, or the preservation of its laws under a tribute-paying government entrusted to selected inhabitants. The histories of Athens and Thebes under Sparta, and of Capua, Carthage, and Numantia under Rome, are used to distinguish the fragile preservation of free institutions from their violent elimination. A free city remembers its liberty and ancient laws; whenever the conqueror suffers misfortune, those memories can become the language of rebellion. Pisa’s rising against Florence after a century of servitude illustrates the persistence of that political memory.

The danger is different in a city accustomed to princely rule. If the ruling line is extinguished, citizens accustomed to obedience and unfamiliar with freedom may be unable to agree on a leader of their own, making them easier for a foreign claimant to attract. Republics, by contrast, possess stronger vitality, fiercer hatred, and a keener desire for revenge because the memory of former freedom remains politically active. Italy therefore embodies a recurring tension between inherited local orders and the demands of an acquiring power: preserving old laws may leave the roots of resistance intact, while replacing them can create the deeper hostility of direct domination.

The Roman example supplies the book’s model for managing this fractured environment. In Greece, Rome used the Achaeans and Aetolians without allowing them to become independently powerful, humbled the Macedonian monarchy, and drove Antiochus out. Neither Philip’s appeals nor Antiochus’s strength persuaded Rome to tolerate a rival authority in the province. The principle is preventive: political disorders must be recognized while still distant and treated before they become obvious and incurable. Rome chose to fight Philip and Antiochus in Greece rather than wait until the same enemies could be fought in Italy, because postponing war would merely give the opposing side the advantage.

France, Milan, and the Making of Italian Vulnerability

Italy’s condition is most sharply diagnosed through the failures of France. Louis XII of France destroyed weaker states, strengthened an already powerful prince, introduced a very powerful stranger, failed to reside in the country, and neglected to establish colonies. His sixth error was to deprive Venice of its dominions after having already enlarged the power of the Church and brought Spain into Italy. While Venice remained powerful, it could have prevented others from attempting the conquest of Lombardy; once weakened, it no longer served as a barrier to competing ambitions.

The consequences extended beyond any single transfer of territory. Louis ceded Romagna to Pope Alexander VI and Naples to Spain, partly to avoid war and partly in connection with promises involving the dissolution of his marriage and the cardinal’s hat granted to Georges d’Amboise. Yet the book insists that war cannot truly be avoided by surrendering strategic designs; it is only deferred until the other side is better placed. France’s policy therefore helped create the forces that later damaged French power. The enlargement of the Church and of Spain in Italy was presented as a result of French action, while France’s ruin was brought about by the very powers it had helped raise.

This reversal produces one of the book’s broadest political principles: the person who makes another powerful may himself be undone. In Italy, assistance, alliance, and concession do not remain neutral acts. They alter the balance of the peninsula and create future dependencies, rivalries, and threats. The country’s vulnerability is thus not explained only by foreign aggression; it is also produced by rulers who mistake temporary relief for durable security.

Fortresses, Resources, and the Capacity to Stand Alone

Italy also serves as the setting for a practical distinction between states able to stand alone and those dependent on outside help. A strong principality is one whose ruler can assemble men and money sufficient to field an army against any assailant. A weaker one must withdraw behind fortified walls and defend itself there. For such a ruler, the essential measures are to fortify the town and establish a relationship with subjects that does not provoke hatred. A well-defended city, supported by inhabitants who do not hate their prince, discourages attack because an enemy can foresee the difficulty of reducing it.

The German towns are offered as an example of this defensive capacity. Though they possess little territory and obey the Emperor only when they choose, their moats, ramparts, artillery, and public magazines make them difficult to conquer. Their stores contain food, drink, and fuel sufficient for a year. They also maintain materials with which poorer citizens can work for a year, preserving the handicrafts on which urban life depends, and they value military exercises. The example clarifies what Italy’s divided powers lack when they rely on shifting alliances or foreign armies instead of building resources, fortifications, and political attachment within their own territories.

Italy as a National Crisis and Political Possibility

By the closing exhortation, Italy is no longer merely an example in a general theory of rule; it becomes the object of an appeal. Its present condition is described as more enslaved than the Hebrews in Egypt, more oppressed than the Persians under the Medes, and more divided than the Athenians before Theseus. It is portrayed as headless and disordered, beaten, spoiled, torn apart, overrun, and abandoned to destruction. The language gathers the preceding political analysis into an image of a country whose fragmentation has made it the prey of competing powers.

The crisis is measured geographically and materially. Lombardy suffers devastation and plunder; Naples and Tuscany endure exactions and imposts; the wounds of the country, neglected for so long, have become running sores. Earlier figures such as Moses, Cyrus the Great, and Theseus had required oppressed, scattered, or enslaved peoples in order for their courage and capacity to become visible. Italy’s abasement is similarly cast as the historical condition that could reveal an Italian hero.

Yet the appeal also carries a record of disappointment. Individuals had previously shown flashes suggesting that they might have been chosen for Italy’s redemption, but the later course of their actions revealed that Fortuna had abandoned them. Italy therefore remains almost lifeless, waiting for a leader capable of healing its injuries, ending foreign devastation, and imposing order where competing powers have left only dependency. Its final significance lies in this double status: Italy is the book’s most vivid warning about fragmented sovereignty, and simultaneously the political space in which a new prince might transform catastrophe into national liberation.