Key Arguments

• Machiavelli explicitly proposes to examine Borgia’s foundations, believing no more useful lessons exist for a new prince.
• He asserts that Borgia’s failure arose “through no fault of his, but from the extraordinary and extreme malignity of Fortune.”
• Machiavelli concludes, “Taking all these actions of the Duke together, I can find no fault with him,” reinforcing the exemplary status.

Source Quotes

And if we consider the various measures taken by Duke Valentino, we shall perceive how broad were the foundations he had laid whereon to rest his future power. These I think it not superfluous to examine, since I know not what lessons I could teach a new Prince, more useful than the example of his actions. And if the measures taken by him did not profit him in the end, it was through no fault of his, but from the extraordinary and extreme malignity of Fortune.

These I think it not superfluous to examine, since I know not what lessons I could teach a new Prince, more useful than the example of his actions. And if the measures taken by him did not profit him in the end, it was through no fault of his, but from the extraordinary and extreme malignity of Fortune. In his efforts to aggrandize the Duke his son, Alexander VI had to face many difficulties, both immediate and remote.

But he told me himself on the day on which Julius II was created, that he had foreseen and provided for everything else that could happen on his father’s death, but had never anticipated that when his father died he too should be at death’s-door. Taking all these actions of the Duke together, I can find no fault with him; nay, it seems to me reasonable to put him forward, as I have done, as a pattern for all such as rise to power by good fortune and the help of others. For with his great spirit and high aims he could not act otherwise than he did, and nothing but the shortness of his father’s life and his own illness prevented the success of his designs.

Key Concepts

• These I think it not superfluous to examine, since I know not what lessons I could teach a new Prince, more useful than the example of his actions.
• it was through no fault of his, but from the extraordinary and extreme malignity of Fortune.
• Taking all these actions of the Duke together, I can find no fault with him;

Context

Chapter 7 (lines 371-503), methodological framing and evaluative judgment of Borgia as model.