IL PRINCIPE

Orsini, having already dispersed those of the House of Colonna. The opportunity came to him well, and he used it better, for the Orsini, realizing late that the greatness of the Duke and of the Church was their ruin, held a diet at Magione in the territory of Perugia. From that came the rebellion of Urbino and the tumults in Romagna, and infinite dangers for the Duke, all of which he overcame with the help of the French. Having regained his reputation, and trusting neither France nor other external forces so as not to have to test them, he turned to deceit. He knew so well how to dissemble his mind that the Orsini, through Signor Paolo, reconciled with him. The Duke did not fail to perform every duty to reassure him, giving him clothes, money, and horses, such that their simplicity led them into his hands at Sinigaglia. Having thus extinguished these leaders and turned their partisans into his friends, the Duke had laid quite good foundations for his power, holding all of Romagna with the Duchy of Urbino and having won over all those peoples by having begun to taste their well-being.

And because this part is worthy of notice and to be imitated by others, I do not want to leave it behind. After the Duke had taken Romagna, finding that it had been commanded by impotent lords who had rather despoiled their subjects than corrected them, and had given them more material for disunion than for union, so that the province was full of robbery, brawls, and every other sort of insolence, he judged it necessary to make it peaceful and obedient to the Royal arm to give it good government. Therefore, he appointed Messer Remiro d'Orco, a cruel and efficient man, to whom he gave the fullest power. In a short time, this man rendered it peaceful and united, with the greatest reputation. Later, the Duke judged that such excessive authority was not appropriate, for he feared it might become hateful. He established a civil court in the middle of the province with an excellent President, where every city had its Advocate. And because he knew that past severities had generated some hatred, in order to purge the spirits of those peoples and win them over entirely, he wanted to show that if any cruelty had followed, it was not born from him but from the bitter nature of his minister. And having taken the opportunity, he had him put in two pieces one morning in the piazza at Cesena, with a block of wood and a bloody knife beside him. The ferocity of this spectacle left those peoples at once