Lehal Library

want either. Looking carefully at the reasons for this and drawing on the examples available from ancient and modern history, we find that it is much easier to win over those who were content with the previous government, and hence your enemies, than the men who were not content and so made an alliance with you and helped you take the country. One way rulers have tried to secure their power is by build- ing fortresses to curb and discourage potential aggressors and to offer a safe refuge in case of sudden attack. I approve of this policy, if only because it has been used for centuries. All the same, there is the recent example of Niccolò Vitelli who demolished two fortresses in Città di Castello in order to hold the town. When Guidobaldo retook possession of his lands after Cesare Borgia’s occupation, he razed every fortress in the state to the ground, convinced that he’d be less likely to lose it again without them. And when the Bentivoglio family returned to power in Bologna it did the same thing. So, whether fortresses are useful or not will depend on the circum- stances; in one situation they’ll be a help and in another they’ll be dangerous. We can sum up the reasons for this as follows. The ruler who is more afraid of his people than of foreign enemies must build fortresses; but the ruler who is more afraid of foreign enemies should do without them. The castle Francesco Sforza built in Milan has provoked and will go on provoking more rebellions against the Sforza family than any other cause of unrest in the whole state. Your best fortress is not to be hated by the people, because even if you do have fortresses, they won’t save you if the people hate you. Once the people have decided to take up arms against you they’ll never be short of foreign support. In recent times there are no examples of fortresses having proved useful to any ruler at all, with the exception of the Countess of Forlı̀, Caterina Sforza, when her husband, Count Girolamo Riario, was mur- dered. Taking refuge in the fortress, she was able to survive the rebels’ assault, wait till help came from Milan, then take