The Prince (18 page)

 

ACHILLESGreek hero in the Trojan War, son of the immortal nymph Thetis and raised by Chiron the centaur.

ACUTO, GIOVANNI Italianization of John Hawkwood (1320- 94). Having served in the English army in France, in 1360 Hawkwood joined mercenary soldiers in Burgundy and later commanded the so-called White Company fighting for different states and factions in Italy. Constantly playing off his employers against their enemies, he built up considerable wealth. From 1390 on he commanded Florentine armies in their war against the Viscontis of Milan.

AGATHOCLES (361-289 BC) Ruler of Syracuse (317-289 BC) and King of Sicily (304-289 BC). Seized power in Syracuse, exiling and murdering thousands in the process. His formation of a strong army and domination of Sicily led to protracted conflict with Carthage.

ALBINUS Decimus Clodius Ceionius Septimius (
c.
150-197). Roman military commander in Britain who proclaimed himself emperor on the murder of Pertinax in 193. Albinus initially allied himself with Severus in Rome who had also proclaimed himself emperor, but the two fell out and in 197, having lost the Battle of Lugdunum (modern Lyons), Albinus either killed himself or was killed.

ALEXANDERAlexander the Great (356-323 BC), King of Macedonia (336-323 BC). He conquered Greece, Persia, and much of Asia.

ALEXANDER Marcus Aurelius Alexander Severus (208-235), Roman emperor (222-235). Adopted as his heir in 221 by the emperor Heliogabalus, who was also his first cousin, Alexander was eventually murdered by his own soldiers.

ALEXANDER VI Rodrigo Borgia (1431-1503). Born in Valencia with the Spanish surname Borja, later Italianized to Borgia. Elected pope in 1492, Alexander openly recognized as many as eight illegitimate children, all of whom he tried to place in high positions. The most famous were Cesare Borgia and Lucrezia Borgia. Involved in endless intrigues to extend his territories and increase his wealth, Alexander was considered the most corrupt and grasping of the Renaissance popes. Although frequently accused of murder, usually by poison, there is no evidence that his own sudden illness and death in 1503 were the result of poisoning.

ANTIOCHUS Antiochus the Great (
c.
241-187 BC), King of Syria (223-187 BC). Spent most of his reign in military campaigns rebuilding the state he had inherited and conquering much of Asia Minor. In 192 BC he invaded Greece but was beaten by the Romans and eventually lost Asia Minor to them as well.

ANTONINUS CARACALLA see CARACALLA.

ASCANIO See SFORZA, CARDINAL.

BAGLIONI The Baglioni family ruled Perugia, a town midway between Florence and Rome, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

BENTIVOGLI, GIOVANNI (1438-1508) Son of Annibale, ruler of Bologna, who was murdered in 1445 when Giovanni was just a child. After a long interregnum Giovanni eventually took his father's place in 1462, but was forced to flee when Pope Julius II attacked the town in 1506.

BERGAMO, BARTOLOMEO DA Bartolomeo Colleone (
c.
1395- 1475). Mercenary leader in the service of Venice and commander of Venetian forces against Milan after Carmagnola was killed. Colleone was remarkable for not changing sides or seeking to play one side off against another. He is celebrated in the famous Colleone monument by Andrea Verocchio in Venice, which shows the leader on his horse.

BERNABÒ See VISCONTI .

BORGIA, CESARE (
c.
1475-1507) Illegitimate son of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI, Cesare Borgia was made Bishop of Pamplona at fifteen and a cardinal at eighteen. In 1497 the murder of his elder brother Giovanni made him the main beneficiary of his father's plans for territorial expansion. Cesare was suspected of Giovanni's murder but nothing was proved. In 1498 he negotiated with Louis XII in Paris on behalf of his father; the king's marriage was dissolved, allowing him to marry the widow of Charles VIII, while Louis agreed to an aggressive military alliance with the pope to capture Naples. Cesare then became the first person in history to resign his position as cardinal, upon which Louis made him Duke of Valenti nois, hence the nickname, Duke Valentino. The alliance with Louis was reinforced by Borgia's marriage to Charlotte d'Albret, the king's cousin, and Borgia was serving with Louis's army when it captured Milan in 1499. Prompted by his father and with Louis's military support, Borgia set out to conquer the Romagna, taking the towns of Fano, Pesaro, Rimini, Cesena, Forlì, Faenza and Imola. In 1501 the pope declared him Duke of Romagna. Borgia successfully commanded French troops at the siege of Naples in 1501, returning to the Romagna to capture Urbino and Camerino in 1502. In this period he appointed Leonardo da Vinci as his military architect and engineer. Faced with a revolt by mercenary leaders in his service, he invited them to Senigallia to negotiate and had them imprisoned and executed. The death of his father in 1503 eventually led to the loss of the Romagna, imprisonment and exile to Spain, where Borgia died in the service of his brother-in-law King John III of Navarre.

BORGIA, RODRIGO See ALEXANDERVI.

BORGIA, VALENTINODuke Valentino. See BORGIA, CESARE.

BRACCIOAndrea Braccio da Montone (1368-1424). Successful mercenary commander who fought numerous campaigns both for and against most of the major states in Italy, eventually becoming ruler of Perugia.

CAESAR Julius Caesar (
c.
100-44 BC). After successful military campaigns in Gaul and Britain, Julius Caesar made himself dictator, taking the first step to transforming the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. He was assassinated by a group of senators including his former friend Marcus Junius Brutus.

CANNESCHI A family that vied with the Bentivogli family for power in Bologna. The Bentivoglis were supported by Venice and Florence while the Canneschis were allied to the Viscontis, dukes of Milan. In 1445, with Milanese support, Battista Canneschi, head of the family, had Annibale Bentivogli murdered. The people of Bologna, however, turned against the Canneschis and lynched Battista, after which the rest of the family fled.

CARACALLAMarcus Aurelius Antoninus Caracalla (188-217), Roman emperor (211-217). On the death of his father, the emperor Severus, Antoninus took power with his brother Geta, but soon had him murdered, together with all his supporters. He extended Roman citizenship to all free citizens of the empire, keeping the support of the army by increasing soldiers' pay. Unpopular with the people, Antoninus was eventually murdered by a member of his own guard, perhaps on the instigation of Macrinus, the next emperor.

CARMAGNOLAFrancesco Bussone (
c.
1432-82), Count of Carmagnola, a small town near Turin. Carmagnola was a mercenary leader hired first by Duke Visconti of Milan, then later by the Venetians to fight Milan. Failing to follow up an initial victory at the battle of Maclodio in 1427, Carmagnola was accused of treachery, arrested and beheaded.

CHARLES VII (1403-61) King of France (1422-61). Inspired by Joan of Arc, Charles united France under one ruler, driving the English from all their French possessions with the exception of Calais. He built up a powerful standing army.

CHARLES VIII (1470-98) King of France (1483-98). Having taken effective power in 1492 after the regency of his sister Anne and encouraged by both the pope and Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, to assert his claim to the throne of Naples, Charles assembled an army of 25,000 men and in 1494 marched into Italy. Having subdued Naples' ally, Florence, Charles took Naples itself in 1495. At this point the other Italian powers, including the pope and Duke Ludovico, turned against him and drove him out of the peninsula.

COLONNA, CARDINALGiovanni Colonna. Made a cardinal in 1480, Giovanni plotted with Charles VIII against Alexander VI.

COLONNAApowerful family in medieval and Renaissance Rome, notorious for their long feud with the Orsini family. The Colonna family produced one pope, Martin V (ruled 1417-31), but were later excommunicated and their estates confiscated by Alexander VI. The feud between the families was ended by papal bull in 1511.

COMMODUS Lucius Aurelius Commodus Antoninus (161-193), Roman emperor (180-93). The son of Marcus Aurelius, Commodus rejected his father's stoic asceticism, giving himself over to pleasure and amusement while allowing a series of favourites to run the empire. Boastful about his physique, he regularly took part in naked gladiatorial combat. Eventually a conspiracy against him led to his being strangled by the wrestler Narcissus.

CONIO, ALBERIGO DA Alberigo da Barbiano (
c.
1348-1409) was originally from the Romagna but later became Count of Conio, a small town in the hills above the Italian Riviera. He was the first mercenary commander to insist that his army (the Company of St George) be made up exclusively of Italians, a development that led to a reduction in the use of foreign mercenaries. Alberigo fought for Milan against Florence, dying in battle in 1409.

CYRUS (
c.
576-529 BC) Founder of the Persian empire, which he extended to include much of central and south-west Asia.

DARIUS Last king of Persia (336-331 BC), Darius was repeatedly defeated in battle by Alexander the Great and finally deposed and murdered by one of his provincial governors.

DAVID(
c.
1012-972 BC) The second King of Israel (after Saul, his father). Famous for his legendary defeat of the Philistine giant Goliath, using only a sling and stones. As king, David built up an empire, capturing Jerusalem, which he made his capital, as well as areas of modern Jordan and Syria.

EPAMINONDAS (418-362 BC) Theban statesman and military commander, he ended Spartan pre-eminence in Greece, making Thebes the dominant power.

FABIUSMAXIMUS(
c.
280-203 BC) Statesman and military commander, five times consul and twice dictator of Rome. Famous for his cautious delaying tactics against Hannibal in the Second Punic War and his hostility towards Scipio.

FERDINANDOFARAGON(1452-1516) At age seventeen Ferdinand married Isabella of Castile, then eighteen, thus taking a first step towards uniting Spain. He ruled Castile with his wife from 1474 and became King of Aragon in 1479. After a long campaign to capture Granada, the last territory held by the Muslims in Spain, Ferdinand was finally victorious in 1492. In the same year he expelled the Jews from both Castile and Aragon. The second half of his reign was spent countering French expansionism in Italy. From 1494 to 1496 he aided Italian leaders in their battle to drive Charles VIII of France out of Italy. In 1501 he signed an agreement with Louis XII to split the Kingdom of Naples between them, but later turned against France, capturing the whole of the kingdom by 1504. By the time of his death, Spain was the most powerful country in Europe, a power enhanced when Ferdinand was succeeded by his grandson, Charles of Austria, who was also Holy Roman Emperor.

FERRARA, DUKE OF Machiavelli is actually referring to two dukes in a family that had ruled Ferrara for some four centuries.

FILIPPO,DUKE See VISCONTI, FILIPPO.

FOGLIANI, GIOVANNI A leading citizen of Fermo, Fogliani was killed in 1501.

FORLÌ, COUNTESS OF Caterina Sforza (1463-1509), an illegitimate daughter of Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan. She married Girolamo Riario, officially the nephew but possibly the son of Pope Sixtus IV. Riario was Count of Forlì and after his murder in 1488 Caterina took control of the town until it was captured by Cesare Borgia in 1500. She is famous for having refused to hand over the citadel of Forlì to rebels despite their threatening to kill her children, whom they held hostage. Exposing her genitals from the castle walls, she told them she was perfectly capable of producing more children.

GRACCHI, THE The brothers Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Sem pronius Gracchus were members of a prominent family in Rome in the second century BC. Both became Tribunes of the Plebs and both were murdered after attempting to limit the power of the nobles and introduce reforms in favour of the plebs.

GUIDOBALDO, DUKE OF URBINO (1472-1508) Guidobaldo da Montefeltro succeeded his father as Duke of Urbino in 1482. He fought as a military captain for Pope Alexander VI and Charles VIII of France, and later for Venice against Charles. Under attack from Cesare Borgia in 1497, he fled the town, returning when Borgia's mercenaries proved disloyal. Under Guidobaldo's rule, the court of Urbino was among the most refined in Europe and is considered to have been the inspiration of Baldassare Castiglione's
Book of the Courtier
, which discusses the qualities of the perfect courtier.

HAMILCAR Hamilcar Barca (
c.
270-228 BC). Successful commander of the Carthaginians in the First Punic War against Roman forces in Sicily in 247 BC. Launched an invasion of Hispania in 236 BC and became virtual dictator of Carthage before being killed in battle. Father of Hannibal.