Italian nobleman — son of Pope Alexander VI — who carved out a principality in central Italy through a combination of military force, cunning, and ruthless elimination of opponents, and whom Machiavelli held up as the model of the new prince in The Prince.
Serves as Machiavelli's model of virtù — the ability to create and maintain political order through force and cunning — and the execution of Ramiro d'Orco (appointed to impose order, then executed publicly when the population hated him) is Machiavelli's example of how to use cruelty intelligently.
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