orator at Rome on the election of Clement.  He had therefore, like Machiavelli and Guicciardini, the best opportunities of forming a correct judgment of the men whose characters he weighed in his Sommario, and of obtaining a faithful account of the events which he related.  He deserves a place upon the muster-roll of literary statesmen mentioned by me in chapter V.; nor should I have omitted him from the company of Segni and Varchi, had not his history been exclusively devoted to an earlier period than theirs.  At the same time he was an intimate friend both of Guicciardini and Machiavelli.  Some of the most precious compositions of the latter are letters addressed from Florence or San Casciano to Francesco Vettori, at the time when the ex-war-secretary was attempting to gain the favor of the Medici.  The clairvoyance and acuteness, the cynical philosophy of life, the definite judgment of men, the clear comprehension of events, which we trace in Machiavelli, are to be found in Vettori.  Vettori, however, had none of Machiavelli’s genius.  What he writes is, therefore, valuable as proving that the Machiavellian philosophy was not peculiar to that great man, but was shared by many inferior thinkers.  Florentine culture at the end of the fifteenth century culminated in these statists of hard brain and stony hearts, who only saw the bad in human nature, but who were not led by cynicism or skepticism to lose their interest in the game of politics.

In the dedication of the Sommario della Storia d’ Italia to Francesco Scarfi, Vettori says that he composed it at his villa, whither he retired in 1527.  I do not purpose to extract portions of the historical narrative contained in this sketch; to do so indeed would be to transcribe the whole, so closely and succinctly is it written; but rather to quote the passages which throw a light upon the opinions of Machiavelli and Guicciardini, or confirm the views of men and morals adopted in my previous chapters.

After touching on the sack of Prato and the consternation which ensued in Florence, Vettori describes the return of the Medici in 1512.  Giuliano, the son of Lorenzo, was the first to appear:  after him came the Cardinal Giovanni, and Giuliano’s son Giulio.[1] The elder among their partisans persuaded them to call a Parlamento and assume the government in earnest.  On September 16, accordingly, the Cardinal took possession of the palace, fece pigliare il Palazzo; the Signory summoned the people into the piazza—­a mere matter of form; a Balia of forty men was appointed; the Gonfalonier Ridolfi resigned; and the city was reduced to the will and pleasure of the Cardinal de’ Medici.  Then reasons sons Vettori:[2] ’This was what is called an absolute tyranny; yet, speaking of the things of this world without prejudice and according to the truth, I say that if it were possible to institute republics like that imagined by Plato, or feigned to exist in Utopia by Thomas More, we might