Chapter II

Of Hereditary Principalities

I shall leave aside any discussion of republics, because I have discussed them at length elsewhere.¹ I shall turn only to principalities, and, weaving together the threads set out above, I shall examine how these principalities can be governed and maintained. I say, then, that in hereditary states accustomed to the family of their prince there are far fewer difficulties in maintaining them than in new ones. For it is enough not to depart from the order established by one's forebears, and then to deal with events as they arise; so that if such a prince is of ordinary diligence, he will always maintain himself in his state, unless some extraordinary and excessive force deprives him of it; and even if he is deprived of it, he will regain it at the first setback suffered by the usurper. We have in Italy, for example, the Duke of Ferrara, who withstood the assaults of the Venetians in 1484 and those of Pope Julius in 1510 for no other reason than that his family had long been established in that dominion. For the natural prince has less cause and less need to give offence; hence it follows that he is more loved; and unless extraordinary vices make him hated, it is reasonable that his subjects should naturally wish him well. And in the antiquity and continuity of his rule the memories and causes of innovation are extinguished; for one change always leaves a toothing on which to build another.

1. In the Discourses on Livy, on which Machiavelli was working at the same time. ↩