Rimini

Rimini is mentioned as one of the Romagna cities already under Venetian protection when Cesare Borgia sought to establish an independent principality for himself. Its importance lies less in a narrated local episode than in the strategic obstacle it represents: control by a powerful external state made the reordering of Romagna politically dangerous and forced Pope Alexander VI and Cesare Borgia to operate within the rivalries of Italy.

Position in Romagna

Rimini belongs to the group of territories that Pope Alexander VI regarded as potential foundations for his son’s power. The Pope could not simply seize any Church territory without consequence. The Duke of Milan and the Venetians were likely to resist such an expansion, and Rimini, together with Faenza, was already under Venetian protection. That protection placed the city within Venice’s sphere of influence and made its possession a matter of wider Italian politics rather than a private transfer of papal power.

The reference also shows how fragmented political authority complicated territorial acquisition. Romagna was not treated as an empty or unified province: individual cities were connected to outside patrons, local powers, and competing Italian interests. Rimini therefore exemplifies the kind of protected city whose status could obstruct Cesare Borgia’s advance and help make the existing political order an impediment to papal aggrandizement.

Connection with Cesare Borgia’s Conquest

Pope Alexander VI’s larger aim was to make Cesare Borgia lord of a state. Because Rimini and Faenza were protected by Venice, the Pope first needed conditions that would disrupt the established balance of power. The Venetian plan to bring France back into Italy supplied such an opportunity. Rather than oppose that plan, Alexander VI encouraged it by annulling the first marriage of the French king, thereby helping create the political confusion in which French military power could be used on behalf of the papal project.

When Louis XII of France entered Italy with Venetian initiative and papal consent, Alexander VI obtained French troops for the campaign against Romagna. The province submitted under the reputation of French arms, and Cesare Borgia took possession of Romagna after the French intervention. Rimini is not described as the scene of a separate battle or administrative act, but its prior Venetian protection clarifies why the conquest required a broader diplomatic and military rearrangement.

Strategic and Narrative Significance

Rimini functions as a compact example of the book’s argument that a prince acquiring a new state must understand its language, laws, customs, alliances, and external guarantees. The city’s difficulty is not presented as a matter of geography alone. Its political dependence on Venice gives it a protective connection beyond the immediate reach of the Church, while the presence of competing powers makes every local acquisition potentially international in consequence.

The city also helps define the limits of power acquired through another ruler’s arms. Cesare Borgia initially relied on French support in Romagna, but the wider discussion presents such dependence as unstable. After taking Imola and Forli with French auxiliary troops, he moved through mercenary forces and ultimately toward troops of his own. His reputation increased as he became master of his own military resources. Against this background, Rimini represents the external entanglements that a new prince must overcome before conquest can become secure possession.

Relation to the Book’s Comparative Method

The treatment of Rimini is characteristic of the book’s method of extracting general political principles from particular places. The discussion moves from the protected cities of Romagna to broader comparisons involving France, Greece, the Ottoman Turkish state, Alexander the Great’s conquest of Asia, and the Roman treatment of free cities. A location such as Rimini is consequently valuable not because its individual history is narrated at length, but because it supplies a concrete instance of divided sovereignty and contested acquisition.

Its mention reinforces the distinction between acquiring territory and retaining it. A city may submit when confronted by a celebrated army, yet the prince who wishes to keep it must account for the institutions and alliances that shaped its previous condition. Rimini’s Venetian protection makes visible the central lesson: conquest becomes durable only when the new ruler neutralizes the political structures capable of reopening the struggle.