Pope Julius the Second went to work impetuously in all his affairs, and found the times and circumstances conform so well to that line of action that he always met with success.Consider his first enterprise against Bologna, Messer Giovanni Bentivogli being still alive.The Venetians were not agreeable to it, nor was the King of Spain, and he had the enterprise still under discussion with the King of France;nevertheless he personally entered upon the expedition with his accustomed boldness and energy, a move which made Spain and the Venetians stand irresolute and passive, the latter from fear, the former from desire to recover the kingdom of Naples; on the other hand, he drew after him the King of France, because that king, having observed the movement, and desiring to make the Pope his friend so as to humble the Venetians, found it impossible to refuse him.Therefore Julius with his impetuous action accomplished what no other pontiff with simple human wisdom could have done; for if he had waited in Rome until he could get away, with his plans arranged and everything fixed, as any other pontiff would have done, he would never have succeeded.
Because the King of France would have made a thousand excuses, and the others would have raised a thousand fears.
I will leave his other actions alone, as they were all alike, and they all succeeded, for the shortness of his life did not let him experience the contrary; but if circumstances had arisen which required him to go cautiously, his ruin would have followed, because he would never have deviated from those ways to which nature inclined him.
I conclude, therefore that, fortune being changeful and mankind steadfast in their ways, so long as the two are in agreement men are successful, but unsuccessful when they fall out.For my part Iconsider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly.She is, therefore, always, woman-like, a lover of young men, because they are less cautious, more violent, and with more audacity command her.
CHAPTER XXVI
AN EXHORTATION TO LIBERATE ITALY FROM THE BARBARIANSHaving carefully considered the subject of the above discourses, and wondering within myself whether the present times were propitious to a new prince, and whether there were elements that would give an opportunity to a wise and virtuous one to introduce a new order of things which would do honour to him and good to the people of this country, it appears to me that so many things concur to favour a new prince that I never knew a time more fit than the present.
And if, as I said, it was necessary that the people of Israel should be captive so as to make manifest the ability of Moses; that the Persians should be oppressed by the Medes so as to discover the greatness of the soul of Cyrus; and that the Athenians should be dispersed to illustrate the capabilities of Theseus: then at the present time, in order to discover the virtue of an Italian spirit, it was necessary that Italy should be reduced to the extremity that she is now in, that she should be more enslaved than the Hebrews, more oppressed than the Persians, more scattered than the Athenians;without head, without order, beaten, despoiled, torn, overrun; and to have endured every kind of desolation.
Although lately some spark may have been shown by one, which made us think he was ordained by God for our redemption, nevertheless it was afterwards seen, in the height of his career, that fortune rejected him; so that Italy, left as without life, waits for him who shall yet heal her wounds and put an end to the ravaging and plundering of Lombardy, to the swindling and taxing of the kingdom and of Tuscany, and cleanse those sores that for long have festered.It is seen how she entreats God to send someone who shall deliver her from these wrongs and barbarous insolencies.It is seen also that she is ready and willing to follow a banner if only someone will raise it.
Nor is there to be seen at present one in whom she can place more hope than in your illustrious house,[*] with its valour and fortune, favoured by God and by the Church of which it is now the chief, and which could be made the head of this redemption.This will not be difficult if you will recall to yourself the actions and lives of the men I have named.And although they were great and wonderful men, yet they were men, and each one of them had no more opportunity than the present offers, for their enterprises were neither more just nor easier than this, nor was God more their friend than He is yours.
[*] Giuliano de Medici.He had just been created a cardinal by Leo X.
In 1523 Giuliano was elected Pope, and took the title of Clement VII.
