Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 2.djvu/31



the 18th of August, 1503, after a sudden and mysterious illness Alexander VI had departed this life—to the unspeakable joy of all Rome, as Guicciardini assures us. Crowds thronged to see the dead body of the man whose boundless ambition, whose perfidy, cruelty, and licentiousness coupled with shameless greed had infected and poisoned all the world. On this side the Alps the verdict of Luther's time and of the centuries which followed has confirmed the judgment of the Florentine historian without extenuation, and so far as Borgia himself was concerned doubtless this verdict is just. But to-day if we consider Alexander's pontificate objectively we can recognise its better sides. Let it pass as personal ambition that he should have been the first of all the Popes who definitely attempted to create a modern State from the conglomerate of the old Stati pontificii, and that he should have endeavoured, as he undeniably did, step by step to secularise that State and to distribute among his friends the remaining possessions of the Church. But in two ways his government shows undeniable progress: in the midst of constant tumult, during which without interruption tyranny succeeded to tyranny in the petty States, when for centuries neither life nor property had been secure, Cesare Borgia had established in the Romagna an ordered government, just and equal administration of the laws; provided suitable outlets for social forces, and brought back peace and security; and by laying out new streets, canals, and by other public works indicated the way to improve agriculture and increase manufacture. Guicciardini himself recognises all this and adds the important comment, that now the people saw how much better it was for the Italians to obey as a united people one powerful master, than to have a petty despot in every town, who must needs be a burden on the townsfolk without being able to protect and help them. And here Guicciardini touches the second point which marks the pontificate of Alexander VI, the appearance, still vague and confused, of the idea of a future union of the Italian States, and their independence of foreign rule and interference. Alexander played with this great political principle