History of Florence and Italy | Page 4

at liberty by Pope Leo X.
He now retired to a small estate near San Casciano, seven miles from
Florence. Here he devoted himself to political and historical studies,
and though apparently retired from public life, his letters show the deep
and passionate interest he took in the political vicissitudes through
which Italy was then passing, and in all of which the singleness of
purpose with which he continued to advance his native Florence, is
clearly manifested. It was during his retirement upon his little estate at
San Casciano that Machiavelli wrote /The Prince/, the most famous of

all his writings, and here also he had begun a much more extensive
work, his /Discourses on the Decades of Livy/, which continued to
occupy him for several years. These /Discourses/, which do not form a
continuous commentary on Livy, give Machiavelli an opportunity to
express his own views on the government of the state, a task for which
his long and varied political experience, and an assiduous study of the
ancients rendered him eminently qualified. The /Discourses/ and /The
Prince/, written at the same time, supplement each other and are really
one work. Indeed, the treatise, /The Art of War/, though not written till
1520 should be mentioned here because of its intimate connection with
these two treatises, it being, in fact, a further development of some of
the thoughts expressed in the /Discorsi/. /The Prince/, a short work,
divided into twenty-six books, is the best known of all Machiavelli's
writings. Herein he expresses in his own masterly way his views on the
founding of a new state, taking for his type and model Cæsar Borgia,
although the latter had failed in his schemes for the consolidation of his
power in the Romagna. The principles here laid down were the natural
outgrowth of the confused political conditions of his time. And as in
the /Principe/, as its name indicates, Machiavelli is concerned chiefly
with the government of a Prince, so the /Discorsi/ treat principally of
the Republic, and here Machiavelli's model republic was the Roman
commonwealth, the most successful and most enduring example of
popular government. Free Rome is the embodiment of his political idea
of the state. Much that Machiavelli says in this treatise is as true to-day
and holds as good as the day it was written. And to us there is much
that is of especial importance. To select a chapter almost at random, let
us take Book I., Chap. XV.: "Public affairs are easily managed in a city
where the body of the people is not corrupt; and where equality exists,
there no principality can be established; nor can a republic be
established where there is no equality."
No man has been more harshly judged than Machiavelli, especially in
the two centuries following his death. But he has since found many
able champions and the tide has turned. /The Prince/ has been termed a
manual for tyrants, the effect of which has been most pernicious. But
were Machiavelli's doctrines really new? Did he discover them? He
merely had the candor and courage to write down what everybody was
thinking and what everybody knew. He merely gives us the

impressions he had received from a long and intimate intercourse with
princes and the affairs of state. It was Lord Bacon, I believe, who said
that Machiavelli tells us what princes do, not what they ought to do.
When Machiavelli takes Cæsar Borgia as a model, he in nowise extols
him as a hero, but merely as a prince who was capable of attaining the
end in view. The life of the State was the primary object. It must be
maintained. And Machiavelli has laid down the principles, based upon
his study and wide experience, by which this may be accomplished. He
wrote from the view-point of the politician,--not of the moralist. What
is good politics may be bad morals, and in fact, by a strange fatality,
where morals and politics clash, the latter generally gets the upper hand.
And will anyone contend that the principles set forth by Machiavelli in
his /Prince/ or his /Discourses/ have entirely perished from the earth?
Has diplomacy been entirely stripped of fraud and duplicity? Let
anyone read the famous eighteenth chapter of /The Prince/: "In what
Manner Princes should keep their Faith," and he will be convinced that
what was true nearly four hundred years ago, is quite as true to-day.
Of the remaining works of Machiavelli the most important is the
/History of Florence/ written between 1521 and 1525, and dedicated to
Clement VII. The first book is merely a rapid review of the Middle
Ages, the history of Florence beginning with Book II. Machiavelli's
method has been censured for adhering at times too closely to the
chroniclers like Villani, Cambi, and Giovanni