But where is the wonder of his being praised if his government was as good as Gregorovius admits it to have been?
What was unnatural in that praise?
What so untruthful as to deserve to be branded sycophantic?
And by what right is an historian to reject as sycophants the writers who praise a man, whilst accepting every word of his detractors as the words of inspired evangelists, even when their falsehoods are so transparent as to provoke the derision of the thoughtful and analytic?
As l'Espinois points out in his masterly essay in the Revue des Questions Historiques, Gregorovius refuses to recognize in Cesare Borgia the Messiah of a united Central Italy, but considers him merely as a high-flying adventurer; whilst Villari, in his Life and Times of Macchiavelli, tells you bluntly that Cesare Borgia was neither a statesman nor a soldier but a brigand-chief.
These are mere words; and to utter words is easier than to make them good.
"High-flying adventurer," or "brigand-chief," by all means, if it please you.

What but a high-flying adventurer was the wood-cutter, Muzio Attendolo, founder of the ducal House of Sforza?
What but a high-flying adventurer was that Count Henry of Burgundy who founded the kingdom of Portugal?
What else was the Norman bastard William, who conquered England?
What else the artillery officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, who became Emperor of the French?
What else was the founder of any dynasty but a high-flying adventurer--or a brigand-chief, if the melodramatic term is more captivating to your fancy?
These terms are used to belittle Cesare.

They achieve no more, however, than to belittle those who penned them; for, even as they are true, the marvel is that the admirable matter in these truths appears to have escaped those authors.
What else Gregorovius opines--that Cesare was no Messiah of United Italy--is true enough.

Cesare was the Messiah of Cesare.

The well-being of Italy for its own sake exercised his mind not so much as the well-being of the horse he rode.