Exploiting The Prince

Abstract

Did Pope Alexander VI exploit his son Cesare Borgia to extend the papal state and finally convert it into a Borgia state? Cesare Borgia became Machiavelli’s model of the political character labelled ‘The Prince’ and he is the hero of his booklet Il Principe (The Prince) which contains Machiavelli’s vision on how to unite his beloved Italy and to bring peace and the rule of law to it. Cesare’s papal father, however, was given a rather negative evaluation by Machiavelli, whom he accused of using ‘old religious customs’ to do ‘nothing else but deceive men ... no man was ever more able to give assurance, or affirmed things with strong oaths, and no man observed them less; however, he always succeeded in his deceptions, as he well knew this aspects of things’ (Prince, 93 M). Of course, Cesare Borgia also exploited his position as a papal son in order to create support for his military expeditions and political feuds. This became obvious with the early death of his papal father and the reign of Julius II.¹ In the end, Cesare was arrested and brought to Spain, the native country of his family, where he died in an ambush at the age of thirty-two fighting for his brother-in-law Juan de Albret, King of Navarra.

Alexander VI was succeeded by Pius III of the Piccolomini family. However, he died within a year. Machiavelli tends to ignore this pope - so we ignore him, too.