Page:A History of Italian Literature - Garnett (1898).djvu/175

Rh did not write his principal work as a contemporary, his knowledge of the Florentine constitution was so intimate as almost to invest him with the authority of an eye-witness of the Florentine revolutions of the past.

Niccolò Machiavelli, the first Italian and almost the first modern to display eminent genius as an historical and political writer, was born at Florence, May 3, 1469. His family had been illustrious for public services; his father, whom he lost at sixteen, was a jurist; his mother was a poetess. Little is known of his life until we find him in 1494 secretary to Marcello Virgilio, a learned man who four years afterwards became head of the chancery of the Republic, a post somewhat resembling Milton's Latin Secretaryship under the Commonwealth, but allowing more active participation in the business of diplomacy. Machiavelli rose along with his patron, and in 1500 was entrusted with a mission to France. In the following year he had a more arduous part to play as envoy to Cæsar Borgia, then consolidating his power in the Romagna, but for the moment pressed with great difficulties. Machiavelli's reports of his mission have been preserved, and attest the impression made upon him by Cæsar's supremacy in ability and villainy, which continued to fascinate him when years afterwards he composed his manual of political statecraft.

Judged in the sinister light which his writings have seemed to throw back upon his actions, he has been accused of having counselled and devised the coup by which Cæsar destroyed his treacherous condottieri at Sinigaglia, as if the Borgia needed any tuition for an exploit of this nature. He is also censured for recording it without disapproval; but if