There the latter announced to the Council of Ten that the Pope's Holiness aimed at the recovery to the Church of those Romagna tyrannies which originally were fiefs of the Holy See and held by her vicars, who, however, had long since repudiated the Pontifical authority, refused the payment of their tributes, and in some instances had even gone so far as to bear arms against the Church.
With one or two exceptions the violent and evil misgovernment of these turbulent princelings was a scandal to all Italy.

They ruled by rapine and murder, and rendered Romagna little better than a nest of brigands.
Their state of secession 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.