History of Florence and of the Affairs of Italy From the Earliest Times to the Death of Lorenzo the Magnificent
- Pages
- about 577
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 11 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
This text was typed up from a Universal Classics Library edition,
published in 1901 by W. Walter Dunne, New York and London. The
translator was not named. The book contains a "photogravure" of
Niccolo Machiavelli from an engraving.
Niccolo Machiavelli, the first great Italian historian, and one of
the most eminent political writers of any age or country, was born
at Florence, May 3, 1469. He was of an old though not wealthy Tuscan
family, his father, who was a jurist, dying when Niccolo was sixteen
years old. We know nothing of Machiavelli's youth and little about
his studies. He does not seem to have received the usual humanistic
education of his time, as he knew no Greek.[*] The first notice of
Machiavelli is in 1498 when we find him holding the office of Secretary
in the second Chancery of the Signoria, which office he retained till
the downfall of the Florentine Republic in 1512. His unusual ability was
soon recognized, and in 1500 he was sent on a mission to Louis XII.
of France, and afterward on an embassy to Cæsar Borgia, the lord of
Romagna, at Urbino. Machiavelli's report and description of this and
subsequent embassies to this prince, shows his undisguised admiration
for the courage and cunning of Cæsar, who was a master in the
application of the principles afterwards exposed in such a skillful and
uncompromising manner by Machiavelli in his Prince.
The limits of this introduction will not permit us to follow with any
detail the many important duties with which he was charged by his native
state, all of which he fulfilled with the utmost fidelity and with
consummate skill. When, after the battle of Ravenna in 1512 the holy
league determined upon the downfall of Pier Soderini, Gonfaloniere of
the Florentine Republic, and the restoration of the Medici, the efforts
of Machiavelli, who was an ardent republican, were in vain; the troops
he had helped to organize fled before the Spaniards and the Medici were
returned to power.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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