Why People Loved a Murdering Tyrant - Ada Palmer

TL;DR

• 1

  Borgia's brutality could win popular support: Ada Palmer explains that Cesare Borgia, often called Valentino in the period, wiped out ruling families in central Italian cities but then imposed neutral justice that ordinary people found far fairer than factional rule.

• 2

  Fairness mattered more than mercy: In Palmer's example of a carpenter's son killing someone in a brawl, punishment under local factions depended on political allegiance, while an outside regime judged the same case the same way regardless of whose side the family served.

• 3

  Machiavelli was startled that fear without hatred can work: The surprise was that a conqueror who massacred elites but treated common people impartially could become popular enough that locals would defend his forts and join his armies.

• 4

  For Machiavelli, liberty meant process, not broad democracy: Even a biased Florentine system counted as liberty because it required trials and public procedure, unlike tyranny where a ruler could summarily order, "Him. Kill him."

• 5

  Florentines defended 'libertas' even though most had no power: Palmer notes the republic's governing signoria came from roughly the top 1 percent, yet ordinary people still risked their lives for the banner of liberty because rule by laws felt fundamentally different from arbitrary personal rule.

• 6

  An internal conqueror like the Medici was gentler than an outsider: Palmer says a Florentine dynasty wanted Florence intact as its own prize, unlike an outside conqueror such as Valentino who might threaten walls or cathedrals to crush resistance.