[4] To multiply the instances of fraud and treason on the part of Italian condottieri would be easy.  I have only mentioned the notable examples which fall within a critical period of five years.  The Marquis of Pescara betrayed to Charles V. the league for the liberation of Italy, which he had joined at Milan.  The Duke of Ferrara received and victualed Bourbon’s (then Frundsberg’s) army on its way to sack Rome, because he spited the Pope, and wanted to seize Modena for himself.  The Duke of Urbino, wishing to punish Clement VII. for personal injuries, omitted to relieve Rome when it was being plundered by the Lutherans, though he held the commission of the Italian League.  Malatesta Baglioni sold Florence, which he had undertaken to defend, to the Imperial army under the Prince of Orange.

[5] ’With the records of these indolent princes and most abject armaments, my history will, therefore, be filled.’  Compare the following passage in a letter from Machiavelli to Francesco Guicciardini (Op. vol. x. p. 255):  ’Comincio ora a scrivere di nuovo, e mi sfogo accusando i principi, che hanno fatto ogni cosa per condurci qui.’

CHAPTER V.

THE FLORENTINE HISTORIANS.

Florence, the City of Intelligence—­Cupidity, Curiosity, and the Love of Beauty—­Florentine Historical Literature—­Philosophical Study of History—­Ricordano Malespini—­Florentine History compared with the Chronicles of other Italian Towns—­The Villani—­The Date 1300—­Statistics—­Dante’s Political Essays and Pamphlets—­Dino Compagni—­Latin Histories of Florence in Fifteenth Century—­Lionardo Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini—­The Historians of the First Half of the Sixteenth Century—­Men of Action and Men of Letters:  the Doctrinaires—­Florence between 1494 and 1537—­Varchi, Segni, Nardi, Pitti, Nerli, Guicciardini—­The Political Importance of these Writers—­The Last Years of Florentine Independence, and the Siege of 1529—­State of Parties—­Filippo Strozzi—­Different Views of Florentine Weakness taken by the Historians—­Their Literary Qualities—­Francesco Guicciardini and Niccolo Machiavelli—­Scientific Statists—­Discord between Life and Literature—­The Biography of Guicciardini—­His ’Istoria d’Italia,’ ‘Dialogo del Reggimento di Firenze,’ ‘Storia Fiorentina,’ ’Ricordi’—­Biography of Machiavelli—­His Scheme of a National Militia—­Dedication of ’The Prince’—­Political Ethics of the Italian Renaissance—­The Discorsi—­The Seven Books on the Art of War and the ‘History of Florence.’

Florence was essentially the city of intelligence in modern times.  Other nations have surpassed the Italians in their genius—­the quality which gave a superhuman power of insight to Shakespeare and an universal sympathy to Goethe.  But nowhere else except at Athens has the whole population of a city been so permeated with ideas, so highly intellectual by nature, so keen in perception, so witty and so subtle,