common, but legal punishment was a thing almost unknown. Perugia, in consternation, became an altered city. Borgia was proud of his success. He assured the Pope that the rest of the country could be reduced to order and peace by measures of exceeding rigour.
Reigning over subjects unaccustomed to obey, befriended by no Power in Europe except the Turk, surrounded by hostile cardinals, with a flaw in his title which invited defiance and contempt, Alexander found himself in a position of the utmost danger. In the natural course of things, a power so wrongfully acquired, and so ill secured would have fallen speedily; and the Papacy bearing the penalty of its corruption would have been subjugated. It was only by resorting to extraordinary artifice of policy, by persisting in the unlimited use of immoral means, and creating" resources he did not lawfully possess, that Alexander could supply the total want of moral authority and material force. He was compelled to continue as he had begun, with the arts of a usurper, and to practise the maxim by which his contemporaries Lewis XI., Ferrante of Naples, and Ferdinand of Aragon prevailed over the disorganised and dissolving society of feudalism, that violence and fraud are sometimes the only way to build up a State.[1] He depended on two things—on the exchange of services done in his spiritual capacity for gold, troops, and political support; and on the establishment of principalities for his own family. The same arts had been employed by his predecessors with less energy and profit. It was an unavoidable temptation, almost a necessity of his position, to carry them to the furthest excess.
The theory of the Papal prerogative was already equal to the demands he made on it. Flatterers told him that he was invested with the power of Almighty God on
- ↑ Uno in una città disordinata merita laude, se, non potendo riordinarla altrimenti, lo fa con la violenza e con la fraude, e modi estraordinarii (Guicciardini, in 'Opere Inedite, i. 22).
menti, dui becharini homicidi ho facti pigliar, et son stati senza tumulto et piacer del popolo menati in presione. Cosa da bon tempo in qua insolita in questa cita, et questa matina ne è stato appichato uno (Aug. 2).
