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the prince
another king. Sharing Lombardy with the Venetians was
forgivable, in that it gave him a foothold in Italy; but there
was nothing necessary about sharing Naples with Spain and
hence it was a mistake.
So Louis made five mistakes: he eliminated the weaker
states; he enhanced the power of one of Italy’s stronger states;
he brought in an extremely powerful foreign king; he didn’t
go to live in the territory he’d acquired and he didn’t establish
colonies there.
All the same, these mistakes might not have done serious
damage during his lifetime had he not now made a sixth by
stripping Venice of its power. Of course, if he hadn’t increased
the pope’s power and brought Spain into Italy, it would have
been quite reasonable and even necessary to cut the Venetians
down to size. But having taken those earlier decisions, he
should never have reduced Venice to such a state of weakness.
As long as Venice was militarily strong, no one else was
going to try to take Lombardy from the French; the Venetians
wouldn’t have allowed another state to attack the region
unless they were going to get territory themselves and the
other states would never have wanted to take Lombardy from
France if it meant giving it to Venice; plus, they would never
have had the courage to confront France and Venice together.
Someone might object: but Louis gave Romagna to Pope
Alexander and Naples to Spain to avoid war; in which case,
let me repeat what I said earlier: you must never fail to respond
to trouble just to avoid war, because in the end you won’t
avoid it, you’ll just be putting it off to your enemy’s advan-
tage. Someone else might insist that Louis had promised
the pope he would attack Venice on his behalf in return for
the pope’s granting the French king a divorce and making the
Archbishop of Rouen a cardinal; in this case let me refer the
reader to what I’ll be saying later about when rulers should,
or then again shouldn’t, keep their promises.
So Louis lost Lombardy because he didn’t take the measures