For this purpose he chose Messer Ramiro d' Orco, 'a man cruel and quick of action, to whom he gave the fullest power.' A story is told of Messer Ramiro which illustrates his temper in a very bizarre fashion: he one day kicked a clumsy page on to the fire, and held him there with a poker till he was burned up.

Acting after this fashion, with plenipotentiary authority, Ramiro soon froze the whole province into comparative tranquillity.

But it did not suit Cesare to incur the odium which the man's cruelty brought on his administration.
Accordingly he had him decapitated one night and exposed to public view, together with the block and bloody hatchet, in the square at Cesena.

Of the art with which Cesare first reduced Romagna to order by the cruelty of his agent, and then avoided the odium of this cruelty by using the wretched creature as an appalling example of his justice and his power, Machiavelli wholly approves.

His theory is that cruelty should be employed for certain definite purposes, but that the Prince should endeavor to shun as far as possible the hatred it inspires.