Lucca is presented as a Tuscan city positioned within Cesare Borgia’s projected expansion. Its significance lies less in a narrated episode than in the strategic chain through which Borgia intended to make himself master of Tuscany: after securing Pisa, he expected Lucca and Siena to yield, partly because of their jealousy of Florence and partly because of their fear. Lucca therefore represents a threatened but not yet conquered power, revealing how political reputation and the collapse of a neighboring city could produce submission without a separate campaign.

Position in Cesare Borgia’s Tuscan Design

Cesare Borgia already held Perugia and Piombino and had assumed the protectorship of Pisa, which he was preparing to attack. Pisa was the immediate objective, but it was not the endpoint. Borgia calculated that once Pisa had fallen, Lucca and Siena would soon give way. Their likely submission depended on the altered balance around them: rivalry with Florence could prevent them from acting in concert with it, while fear of Borgia could make resistance appear more dangerous than accommodation.

This sequence places Lucca within a territorial strategy rather than an isolated military narrative. Borgia sought to turn possession of one city into leverage over several others, using a conquered or subordinated Pisa as a political key to Tuscany. Lucca’s importance consequently arose from its position in the projected chain of capitulations and from the possibility that Florence, increasingly encircled, would be left in a desperate situation.

Fear, Rivalry, and Expected Submission

The expectation that Lucca would yield rests on two pressures working together. Jealousy of Florence supplied a motive for separation from the Florentine interest, while fear of Borgia supplied the coercive force behind that separation. The city is thus represented as a participant in a regional system where political choices are shaped not only by direct invasion but also by the ambitions and anxieties generated by neighboring powers.

Lucca’s anticipated submission also demonstrates the value Borgia placed on momentum. Each acquisition was meant to change the calculations of the next state. Once Pisa had been taken, Lucca would no longer confront the same Borgia who stood before it earlier; it would face a ruler whose territory, reputation, and resources had expanded. The projected result was a widening circle of compliance in which fear did the work that prolonged siege or occupation might otherwise have required.

Place in the Book’s Political Comparisons

The discussion of Lucca belongs to the book’s broader comparison of rulers who attempt to consolidate newly acquired territories. The text contrasts the ease with which Alexander the Great secured the kingdom of Darius with the difficulties faced by conquerors of states divided among many local princes. It also distinguishes the methods required for provinces sharing a ruler’s language and customs from those required in countries governed by different laws and usages.

Within that framework, Lucca helps make Tuscany legible as a connected political field. Its fate would depend on the treatment of Pisa, Florence, Siena, and the surrounding powers, not solely on its own military capacity. The example supports the wider argument that a prudent ruler must anticipate future disorders while they are still remote, weaken stronger neighbors, cultivate weaker ones without allowing them to become too powerful, and prevent a foreign power of comparable strength from entering the province.

Narrative and Strategic Significance

Lucca is never described as independently conquered in the supplied account. Instead, it remains part of a conditional future: if Pisa were taken, Lucca and Siena would likely have surrendered. That conditional form is important. It presents political domination as an unfolding possibility, allowing the reader to see the intended architecture of Borgia’s power without mistaking an unrealized plan for a completed event.

The city therefore functions as evidence of Borgia’s ambition and of the fragility of Italian political independence in the period under discussion. His plan was to become reliant on his own strength rather than on French support, and the submission of Lucca would have contributed to the reputation and territorial depth needed for that independence. The city’s projected fall marks the point at which a local conquest might have become a general reordering of Tuscany, with Florence isolated and Borgia positioned as the dominant power in the region.