Editing Louis XII (section)

===As portrayed in Machiavelli's ''The Prince''===

Louis's failure to hold on to Naples prompted a commentary by Niccolò Machiavelli in his book, ''The Prince'':
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| quote = King Louis was brought into Italy by the ambition of the Venetians, who expected by his coming to get control of half the state of [[Lombardy]]. I don't mean to blame the king for his part in the scheme; he wanted a foothold in Italy, and not only had no friends in the province, but found all doors barred against him because of King Charles's behavior. Hence he had to take what friendships he could get; and if he had made no further mistakes in his other arrangements, he might have carried things off very successfully. By taking Lombardy, the king quickly regained the reputation lost by Charles. Genoa yielded, and the Florentines turned friendly, the [[Marquis of Mantua]], the [[Duke of Ferrara]], the [[Bentivogli]] (of Bologna), the countess of [[Forlì]] ([[Caterina Sforza]]), the lords of [[Faenza]], [[Pesaro]], [[Rimini]], [[Camerino]], [[Piombino]], and the people of [[Lucca]], Pisa, and [[Siena]] all sought him out with professions of friendship. At this point the Venetians began to see the folly of what they had done, since in order to gain for themselves a couple of districts in Lombardy, they had now made the king master of a third of Italy.

Consider how easy it would have been for the king to maintain his position in Italy if he had observed the rules [of not worrying about weaker powers, decreasing the strength of a major power, not introducing a very powerful foreigner in the midst of his new subjects and taking up residence among his new subjects and/or setting up colonies], and become the protector and defender of his new friends. They were many, they were weak, some of them were afraid of the Venetians, others of the Church, hence they were bound to stick by him; and with their help, he could easily have protected himself against the remaining great powers. But no sooner was he established in Milan than he took exactly the wrong tack, helping [[Pope Alexander VI|Pope Alexander]] to occupy the [[Romagna]]. And he never realized that by this decision he was weakening himself, driving away his friends and those who had flocked to him, while strengthening the Church by adding vast temporal power to the spiritual power which gives it so much authority. Having made this first mistake, he was forced into others. To limit the ambition of Alexander and keep him from becoming master of [[Tuscany]], he was forced to come to Italy himself [in 1502]. Not satisfied with having made the Church powerful and deprived himself of his friends, he went after the kingdom of Naples and divided it with the king of Spain (Ferdinand II). And where before he alone had been the arbiter of Italy, he brought in a rival to whom everyone in the kingdom who was ambitious on his own account or dissatisfied with Louis could have recourse. He could have left in Naples a caretaker king of his own, but he threw him out, and substituted a man capable of driving out Louis himself.

If France could have taken Naples with her own power, she should have done so; if she could not, she should not have split the kingdom with the Spaniards. The division of Lombardy that she made with the Venetians was excusable, since it gave Louis a foothold in Italy; the division of Naples with Spain was an error, since there was no such necessity for it. [When Louis made the final mistake of] depriving the Venetians of their power (who never would have let anyone else into Lombardy unless they were in control), he thus lost Lombardy.
| source = [[Niccolò Machiavelli]], ''[[The Prince]]'',<ref>''The Prince'' by Niccolò Machiavelli. Translated and edited by [[Robert M. Adams (literary scholar)|Robert M. Adams]]. A Norton Critical Edition. New York: 1977. pp. 9–11.</ref> Chapter III
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