Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/166

Rh 148 M A C H I A V E L L I jealousy shrank from conferring this importiu.it office on a Florentine, lest one member of the state should acquire a power dangerous to the whole. The choice of Soderini and Machiavelli fell, at this juncture, upon an extremely ineligible person, none other than Don Micheletto, Cesare Borgia s cut-throat and assassin. It is necessary to insist upon this point, since it serves to illustrate a radical infirmity in Machiavelli s genius. While forming and promoting his scheme, he was actuated by principles of political wisdom and by the purest patriotism. But he failed to perceive that such a ruffian as Micheletto could not inspire the troops of Florence with that devotion to their country and that healthy moral tone which should distinguish a patriot army. Here, as elsewhere, he revealed his insensibility to the ethical element in human nature. Knowing that Don Micheletto had worked well for Cesare Borgia, accustomed to disregard private morality as in significant in public conduct, he was satisfied to entrust the discipline and education of his raw militia to a notorious villain. His indifference to personal ethics led him now into a practical blunder, as it afterwards vitiated his political writings with a philosophical error. Meanwhile Italy had been the scene of memorable events, in most of which Machiavelli took some part. Alexander VI. had died suddenly of fever. Julius II. had ascended the papal chair. The duke Valentino had been checked in mid-career of conquest. Machiavelli was sent to Rome during the conclave, when he renewed his inter course with Cesare Borgia. On this occasion he seems to have felt nothing but contempt for the hero of his dreams, who had sunk into insignificance and almost abject submission. The collapse of the Borgias threw Central Italy into confusion; and Machiavelli had, in 1505, to visit the Baglioni at Perugia and the Petrucci at Siena. In the following year he accompanied Julius upon his march through Perugia into the province of Emilia, where the fiery pope subdued in person the rebellious cities of the church. Upon these embassies Machiavelli represented the Florentine Dieci in quality of envoy. It was his duty to keep the ministry informed by means of frequent despatches and reports. All this while the war for the recovery of Pisa was slowly dragging on, with no success or honour to the Florentines. Machiavelli had to attend the camp and provide for levies amid his many other occupations. And yet he found time for private literary work. In the autumn of 1504 he began his Decennali, or Annals of Italy, a poem composed in rough terza rima, and now remembered only for one line describing the courage of Piero Capponi, when he defied Charles VIII. to his face in 1495 : &quot; Lo strepito dell armi c do cavalli, Non pote far cho non fosse sentita La voce d un Cappon fra cento Galli.&quot; About the same time he composed a comedy on the model of Aristophanes, which is unfortunately lost. It seems to have been called Le Maschere. Giuliano de Ricci tells us it was marked by stringent satire upon great eccle siastics and statesmen, no less than by a tendency to &quot; ascribe all human things to natural causes or to fortune.&quot; That phrase accurately describes the prevalent bias of its author s mind. The greater part of 1506 and 1507 was spent in organiz ing the new militia, corresponding on the subject, and scouring the country on enlistment service. But at the end of the latter year European affairs of no small moment diverted Machiavelli from these humbler duties. Maxi milian was planning a journey into Italy in order to be crowned emperor at Rome, and was levying subsidies from the imperial burghs for his expenses. The Florentines thought his demands excessive. Though they already Ind Francesco Vettori at his court, Soderini judged it advisable to send Machiavelli thither in December. He travelled by Geneva, all through Switzerland, to Botzen, where he found the emperor. This journey was nn important moment in his life. It enabled him to study the Swiss and the Germans in their homes ; and the report which he wrote on his return, Jfapporto di Cose dclla Mngna, reckons among his most effective political studies. Instead of con fining his attention to the analysis of parties or the portraits of eminent persons in the countries he had traversed, Machiavelli strove to estimate the essential elements of national success or failure. The antique sobriety of the Swiss, their absolute equality and inde pendence, their efficient national militia, inspired him with such admiration that henceforth the Swiss appeared to him the model of modern nations and the most formidable among the neighbours of the Italians, lie pointed out that the strength of Germany lay in the free cities, while the emperor was weakened, not only by his own indecisive character and want of funds, but by the jealousy of tli3 feudal princes. The German princes, the burghs, and the empire being ill-accorded, and the Swiss being hostile to all alike, this vast nation lacked the force which its excellent morality, sober living, and vigorous military organization ought to have secured if. What is most remarkable in Machiavelli s report is his concentrated effort to realize the exact political weight of the German nation, and to penetrate the causes of its strength and weakness. lie attempts to grasp the national character as a whole, and thence to deduce practical conclusions. Certain mistakes he undoubtedly made. lie treated the Swiss, for example, too much as though they were a part of Germany. He exaggerated the simplicity and sobriety of the race at large, seemingly inspired by Tacitus, and inflamed in his own imagination by sympathy with a people who realized his cherished dreams of national health. His indifference to ecclesi astical questions prevented him from discerning the crisis of the Reformation, which was on the verge of precipitating Germany into the discord of religious wars. Yet, allowing for these drawbacks, we are astonished by the insight into details and the co-ordinating faculty which enabled this Italian to draw so discriminating and animated a portrait of the Germans for the benefit of his republic. The same great qualities are noticeable in his Ritratti dcllt Cose di Francia, which he drew up after an embassy to Louis XII. at Blois in 1510. These notes upon the French race are more scattered than the report on German affairs. But they reveal no less acumen combined with imaginative penetration into the very essence of national existence. He points out that the special strength of France lies in her centralization. The monarch is surrounded by obedient feudal vassals, the most powerful of whom are of the royal blood. They in their turn draw their wealth from the people. Feudalism, an element of discord in German}, has been converted into monarchy, and become the cohesive bond of society in France. On the other hand, this centralization contains a grave element of danger for the future of France. The people are ground down and have no liberty. Machiavelli points out how, in these circum stances, the pith of the French army is its chivalry, and why the king is always obliged to hire German and Swiss infantry for his wars. The Ritratti abound in pointed observations upon the French character which is well contrasted with that of the Spaniards. But what constitutes the originality of this tract is Machiavelli s determination to realize to himself and to his readers the political value of the French people as a whole, and thus to form a solid basis for judging of its probable behaviour in the future. In this case, as in the case of Germany, he attempts to estimate the physical, moral, and intellectual capacity of an antagonist with whom his country has to grapple. It may be said that, with Franco as with Germany, he wholly omits the possibilities of religious perturbation. While engaged upon this topic, it may be well to mention that Machiavelli displayed exactly the same force of analysis in laying bare the central causes of weakness in Italy itself. The disarma ment of the population by selfish despots and indolent republics ; the consequent growth of a vicious mercenary system ; the dis memberment of the nation into petty, mutually jealous parcels, due for the most part to the selfishness of Rome; the loss of antique sobriety in manners, and the almost total corruption of the people, fostered and encouraged by their debauched spiritual leaders, these, he says, are the causes which have made Italy &quot;more enslaved than the Hebrews, more downtrodden than the Persians, more disunited than the Athenians.&quot; This is not the place to discuss his policy for the Italians. Suffice it to say that the same method which he applied to Germany and France supplied him with general conclusions about Italy, and enabled him to view with a truly terrible clairvoyance that desperate disease of his country for which he afterwards invented remedies as desperate. Machiavelli returned from Germany in June 1508. The rest of that year and a large part of 1509 were spent in the affairs of the militia and the war of Pisa. Chiefiy