from the Holy See arose largely out of the
nepotism practised by the last Popes--a nepotism writers are too prone
to overlook when charging Alexander with the same abuse. Such Popes as
Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII had broken up the States of the Church that
they might endow their children and their nephews. The nepotism of such
as these never had any result but to impoverish the Holy See; whilst, on
the other hand, the nepotism of Alexander--this Pope who is held up
to obloquy as the archetype of the nepotist--had a tendency rather to
enrich it. It was not to the States of the Church, not by easy ways
of plundering the territories of the Holy See, that he turned to found
dominions and dynasties for his children. He went beyond and outside of
them, employing princely alliances as the means to his ends. Gandia
was a duke in Spain; Giuffredo a prince in Naples, and Cesare a duke
in France. For none of these could it be said that territories had
been filched from Rome, whilst the alliances made for them were such
as tended to strengthen the power of the Pope, and, therefore, of the
Church.

The reconsolidation of the States of the Church, the recovery of
her full temporal power, which his predecessors had so grievously
dissipated, had ever been Alexander's aim; Louis XII afforded him, at
last, his opportunity, since with French aid the thing now might be
attempted.

His son Cesare was the Hercules to whom was to be given the labour of
cleaning out the Augean stable of the Romagna.

That Alexander may have been single-minded in his purpose has never
been supposed. It might, indeed, be to suppose too much; and the general
assumption that, from the outset, his chief aim was to found a powerful
State for his son may be accepted. But let us at least remember that
such had been the aims of several Popes before him. Sixtus IV and
Innocent VIII had similarly aimed at founding dynasties in Romagna for
their families, but, lacking the talents and political acuteness of
Alexander and a son of the mettle and capacity of Cesare Borgia, the
feeble trail of their ambition is apt to escape attention. It is also to
be remembered that, whatever Alexander's ulterior motive, the immediate
results of the campaign with which he inspired his son were to reunite
to the Church the States which had fallen away from her, and to
re-establish her temporal sway in the full plenitude of its dominion.
However much he may have been imbued with the desire