# Chapter XX — Whether Fortresses and Many Other Things Which Are Made and Done by Princes Every Day Are Useful or Useless

Some princes have disarmed their subjects so as to hold their states securely; some others have kept their subject towns divided; some have nourished enmities against themselves; some others have turned to gaining to themselves those who had been suspect to them at the beginning of their states; some have built fortresses; some have knocked them down and destroyed them. And although one cannot give a definite judgment on all these things unless one comes to the particulars of those states where any such decision has to be made, nonetheless I shall speak in that broad mode which the matter permits in itself.

There has never been, then, a new prince who has disarmed his subjects; on the contrary, whenever he has found them unarmed, he has always armed them. For when they are armed, those arms become yours; those whom you suspected become faithful, and those who were faithful remain so; and from subjects they are made into your partisans. And because all subjects cannot be armed, if those whom you arm are benefited, one can act with more security toward the others. The difference of treatment that they recognize regarding themselves makes them obligated to you; the others excuse you, judging it necessary that those who have more danger and more obligation deserve more. But, when you disarm them, you begin to offend them; you show that you distrust them either for cowardice or for lack of faith, both of which opinions generate hatred against you. And because you cannot remain unarmed, you must turn to a mercenary military, which is of the quality described above;172 and even if it were good, it cannot be so good as to defend you against powerful enemies and suspect subjects. So, as I said, a new prince of a new principality always has ordered the arms there. The histories are full of examples of this.

But when a prince acquires a new state that is added as a member to his old one, then it is necessary to disarm that state, except for those who were your partisans in acquiring it. These, too, it is necessary to render soft and effeminate, in time and with opportunity, and to be ordered so that the arms of all your state are only with your own soldiers, who live next to you in your old state.

Our ancients, and those who were esteemed wise, used to say that it was necessary to hold Pistoia with parties and Pisa with fortresses; and because of this they nourished differences in some towns subject to them, so as to hold them more easily. In times when Italy was in balance in a certain mode, this would have been good to do, but I do not believe that one could give it today as a teaching. For I do not believe that divisions ever do any good; on the contrary, when the enemy approaches, of necessity divided cities are immediately lost, because the weaker party always joins the external forces and the other will not be able to rule.

The Venetians, moved as I believe by the reasons written above, nourished the Guelf and Ghibelline sects in the cities subject to them. Although the Venetians never let them come to blood, still they nourished these contentions among them, so that occupied as those citizens were with their differences, they did not unite against the Venetians. As may be seen, this did not turn out according to their plan later, because when they were defeated at Vailà, one party immediately became daring, and took all of their state from them. Such modes, therefore, imply weakness in the prince. For in a vigorous principality such divisions are never permitted, because they bring profit only in time of peace, as subjects can be managed more easily through them; but when war comes, such an order shows its own fallaciousness.

Without doubt princes become great when they overcome difficulties made for them and opposition made to them. So fortune, especially when she wants to make a new prince great—since he has a greater necessity to acquire reputation than a hereditary prince—makes enemies arise for him and makes them undertake enterprises against him, so that he has cause to overcome them and to climb higher on the ladder that his enemies have brought for him. Therefore many judge that a wise prince, when he has the opportunity for it, should astutely nourish some enmity so that when he has crushed it, his greatness emerges the more from it.

Princes, and especially those that are new, have found more faith and more utility in those men who at the beginning of their states were held to be suspect than in those whom they trusted at the beginning. Pandolfo Petrucci, prince of Siena, ruled his state more with those who had been suspect to him than with the others. But one cannot speak broadly of this thing because it varies according to the subject. I will only say this, that the prince will always be able to win over to himself with the greatest ease those men who in the beginning of a principality had been enemies, and who are of such quality that to maintain themselves they need somewhere to lean. They are all the more forced to serve him faithfully as they know it is more necessary for them to cancel out with deeds the sinister opinion one has taken of them. And so the prince always extracts more use from them than from those who, while serving him with too much security, neglect his affairs.

And since the matter requires it, I do not want to leave out a reminder to princes who have newly taken a state through internal support within it, that they consider well what cause moved those who supported them to support them. If it is not natural affection toward them but only because those supporters were not content with that state, he will be able to keep them his friends with trouble and great difficulty, because it is impossible for him to make them content. And while reviewing173 well the cause of this, with examples drawn from ancient and modern things, he will see that it is much easier to gain as friends to himself men who were content with the state beforehand, and therefore were his enemies, than those who, because they were not content with it, became friends and gave him support in seizing it.

It has been the custom of princes, so as to be able to hold their states more securely, to build fortresses that would be a bridle and bit for those who might plan to act against them, and to have a secure refuge from sudden attack.174 I praise this mode because it has been used since antiquity. Nonetheless, in our times Messer Niccolò Vitelli was seen to destroy two fortresses in Città di Castello in order to hold that state. When Guidobaldo, duke of Urbino, returned to his dominion from which Cesare Borgia had expelled him, he razed all the fortresses in that province to their foundations; and he judged that without them he would with greater difficulty lose his state again. When the Bentivogli returned to Bologna, they adopted similar measures. Fortresses are thus useful or not according to the times, and if they do well for you in one regard, they hurt175 you in another. And one may discuss this issue thus. The prince who has more fear of the people than of foreigners ought to make fortresses, but the one who has more fear of foreigners than of the people, ought to omit them. The castle in Milan built by Francesco Sforza has brought and will bring more war to the Sforza house than any other disorder of that state. Therefore the best fortress there is, is not to be hated by the people, because although you may have fortresses, if the people hold you in hatred fortresses do not save you; for to peoples who have taken up arms foreigners will never be lacking to come to their aid. In our times fortresses have not been seen to bring profit to any prince, unless to the Countess of Forlì, when Count Girolamo, her consort, died; for by means of a fortress she was able to escape a popular uprising,176 to await help from Milan, and to recover her state.177 And the times then were such that a foreigner could not help the people. But later, fortresses were worth little to her when Cesare Borgia attacked her, and her hostile people joined with the foreigner. Therefore, then and before it would have been more secure for her not to be hated by the people than to have had fortresses. So, having considered all these things, I shall praise whoever makes fortresses and whoever does not, and I shall blame anyone who, trusting in fortresses, thinks little of being hated by the people.