suzerainty over the petty tyrants whose dominions were merged in the new duchy of Romagna, and incurred no positive loss by the change. In reality there was closer connection with Cæsar than with the vassals he had deposed, and more reliance to be placed in him. His fidelity was secured, for he could not maintain himself in opposition to the Pope. He had no friends in the other Italian States. Supported by the inexhaustible wealth of the Church, he could keep up an army which no power in Italy could resist; and the Papacy, assured of his fidelity, obtained for the first time a real material basis of independence. Before the French invasion of 1494, the Italians had so little habit of serious warfare that the various States enjoyed a sort of inert immunity from attack.[1] The expedition of Charles VIII. showed how little there was of real security in the general proneness to inaction. By the aid of Cæsar Borgia the Papacy became a military power. That aid was purchased at a great price, but it was sure to be efficient.
The danger was not that the provinces would be alienated, but that the Papacy would fall under the sway of its formidable vassal. Alexander not only foresaw this result, but anxiously contrived to make it certain. It meant that his family should not relax their hold on the Church, to which they owed their elevation. He did not wish to weaken the staff on which they were obliged to lean. His purpose was not to dismember the State, but to consolidate part of it in such a way that his descendants should be the servants and yet the masters of his successors, and that a dynasty of Borgias should protect and should control the Papacy. There was ruin in the scheme, but not the obvious ruin commonly supposed. It was not inspired by religion or restrained by morality, but it was full of intelligent policy of a worldly sort. Cæsar's principality fell to pieces, but the materials enabled Julius II. to build up the Roman State, which was destined to last so long. The Borgias had laid so
- ↑ Chi aveva uno Stato era quasi impossible lo perdessi (Guicciardini, Opere Inedite, i. 109).
