Yet if any man should ask me whence it proceeds, that the Church in temporal power hath attaind to such greatness, seeing that till the time of Alexander the sixt, the Italian Potentates, and not only they who are entituled the potentates, but every Baron and Lord though of the meanest condition in regard of the temporality, made but small account of it; and now a King of France trembles at the power thereof; and it hath been able to drive him out of Italy, and ruine the Venetians; and however this be well known, me thinks it is not superstitious in some part to recall it to memory.
"Machiavelli, Volume I The Art of War; and The Prince"
Niccolò Machiavelli
You have to understand, that so soon as in these later times the yoak of the Italian Empire began to be shaken off, and the Pope had gotten reputation in the temporality, Italy was divided into several States: for many of the great cities took armes against their Nobility; who under the Emperors protection had held them in oppression; and the Pope favored these, whereby he might get himself reputation, in the temporality; of many others, their Citizens became Princes, so that hereupon Italy being come into the Churches hands as it were, and some few Republicks, those Priests and Citizens not accustomed to the use of armes, began to take strangers to their pay.
"Machiavelli, Volume I The Art of War; and The Prince"
Niccolò Machiavelli
The four Catholic Powers, and not without the consent of the other States, united in order to drive the rebels from Rome and the Roman States, and restore to the Pontiff his temporality.
"Pius IX. And His Time"
The Rev. Æneas MacDonell Dawson
