# CHAPTER 12 — How Important It Is to Take Account of Religion, and How Italy, Lacking in Religion Thanks to the Roman Church, Has Been Ruined

Those princes or republics that wish to maintain their integrity must, above all else, maintain the integrity of their religious ceremonies, and must always hold them in veneration, because there can be no greater indication of the ruin of a state than to see a disregard for its divine worship. This is easy to understand if one knows how the religion in the place where a man is born has been founded, because the life of every religion has its foundations in one of its principal institutions. The existence of the pagan religion * was founded upon the responses of the oracles and the sect of diviners and soothsayers; all the other ceremonies, sacrifices, and rites depended upon them, because they simply believed that the god who could predict your future good or evil could also grant it to you. From this belief arose the temples, from this the sacrifices, from this the supplications and every other ceremony devoted to their veneration; from this, the oracle of Delphi, the temple of Jupiter Ammon, and other famous oracles, which filled the world with wonder and devotion. Later, as these oracles began to speak in a way similar to that of the powerful and their falsity was discovered by the peoples, men became disbelievers and capable of undermining every good institution. The rulers of a republic or a kingdom must, therefore, uphold the foundations of the religion they profess; and having done this, they will find it an easy matter for them to maintain a devout republic and, as a consequence, one that is good and united. They must also encourage and support all those things that arise in favour of this religion, even those they judge to be false, and the more they have to do so, the more prudent they are and the more knowledgeable about natural phenomena. Because this method has been followed by wise men, there has arisen a belief in miracles that are celebrated even by false religions; thus, prudent men magnify their importance, no matter the principle from which they originate, and through the authority of these miracles they gain everyone’s confidence. There were many such miracles in Rome: among them was the one that occurred while Roman soldiers were sacking the city of Veii, when a number of them entered the temple of Juno and, drawing close to the goddess’s image, asked it ‘Do you wish to come to Rome?’, and it seemed to some that she nodded her head and to others that she said ‘yes’. Since these men were steeped in religion (something Livy demonstrates, for upon entering the temple they came inside without making any disturbance, all devout and full of reverence), they seemed to hear a response to their question that they might by chance have expected; their opinion and credulity was strongly encouraged and supported by Camillus and the other rulers of the city. If this kind of religion had been maintained by the clergy of Christian republics just as it had been instituted by its founder, Christian states and Christian republics would be more united and more happy than they are now. Nor can there be another, better basis for speculating about its decline than to see that those peoples who are nearer the Roman church, the head of our religion, have less religion. Anyone who studies its fundamental principles and sees how different present practice is from them would judge it to be, without any doubt, very near either ruin or punishment. *

Since many are of the opinion that the well-being of the Italian cities arises from the Roman church, I want to discuss the arguments that occur to me against this opinion, and I shall cite as evidence two very powerful ones which, in my view, cannot be refuted. The first is that because of the evil examples set by this court, this land has lost all piety and religion; this brings with it countless disadvantages and countless disorders, because just as we take for granted every good thing where religion exists, so, where it is lacking, we take for granted the contrary. We Italians have, therefore, this initial debt to the church and to the priests, that we have become irreligious and wicked, but we have an even greater debt to them, which is the second cause of our ruin: that is, the church has kept and still keeps this land divided, and truly, no land is ever united or happy unless it comes completely under the obedience of a single republic or a single prince, as has occurred in France and Spain. The reason why Italy is not in that same condition and why it, too, does not have either a single republic or a single prince to govern it lies solely with the church, because although the church has its place of residence in Italy and has held temporal power there, it has not been so powerful nor has it possessed enough skill to be able to occupy the remaining parts of Italy and make itself ruler of this country, and, on the other hand, it has not been so weak that, for fear of losing control over its temporal affairs, it has been unable to bring in someone powerful * to defend it against anyone in Italy who had become too powerful: this is seen to have happened in ancient times through a number of examples, as when with Charlemagne’s assistance, the Lombards, already kings of almost all of Italy, were driven out, and when in our own times the church took power away from the Venetians with the aid of France and then chased out the French with the aid of the Swiss. * Since it has not, therefore, been powerful enough to take possession of all of Italy, nor has it permitted anyone else to do so, the church has been the reason why Italy has been unable to unite under a single leader and has remained under a number of princes and lords, who have produced so much disunity and weakness that it has come to be easy prey not only to powerful barbarians * but to anyone who might attack it. For this we Italians are indebted to the church and to no one else. Anyone who might wish to see this truth more clearly through actual experience needs to possess sufficient power to send the Roman court, with all the authority it possesses in Italy, to live in the lands of the Swiss, who are today the only people who live, with respect to religion and military institutions, as the ancients did, and he would observe that in a brief time the wicked customs of that court would create more disorder in that land than any other event that could at any time take place there.