Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/283

259 chool of ics. EXPEDITION OF CHARLES VIII. 259 leave an indelible stain on the transactions of pri- chapter vate individuals. '■ — Italy was, doubtless, the great school where this itaiy the ^ -^ ' _ ' O school "•• political morality was taught. That country w^as p°'" broken up into a number of small states, too nearly equal to allow the absolute supremacy of any one ; while, at the same time, it demanded the most restless vigilance on the part of each to maintain its independence against its neighbours. Hence such a complexity of intrigues and combinations as the world had never before witnessed. A subtile, refined policy was conformable to the genius of the Italians. It was partly the result, moreover, of their higher cultivation, which naturally led them to trust the settlement of their disputes to superior intellectual dexterity, rather than to brute force, like the barbarians beyond the Alps. ^ From these and other causes, maxims were gradually establish- ed, so monstrous in their nature as to give the work, which first embodied them in a regular sys- tem, the air of a satire rather than a serious per- formance, while the name of its author has been converted into a by-word of political knavery. ^ 3 " Sed diu," says Sallust, no- pra Tito Livio," which appeared ticinff the similar consequence of after his death, excited no scandal increased refinement among the at the time of their publication, ancients, " magnum inter mortales They came into the world, indeed, certamen fuit, vine corporis an from the pontifical press, under the virtute animi res militaris magis privilege of the reigning pope, procederet. ***** Tum demum Clement VII. It was not until periculo atque negotiis compertum thirty years later that they were est, in hello plurimum ingenium placed on the Index ; and this not posse." Bellum Catilinarium, cap. from any exceptions taken at the 1, 2. immorality of their doctrines, as 4 Machiavelli's political treatises, Ginguen6 has well proved, (His- his " Principe " and " Discorsi so- toire Litt6raire d'ltalie, (Paris,