Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/47

 Europe at the Opening of the Sixteenth Centicry 9 Prince. II. Machiavelli's Description of the Troubles in Italy at the Opening of the Sixteenth Century Machiavelli's little guide for despots, The Prince} was Machiavelli's written in 15 13, at the opening of Leo X's pontificate, and contains many references to important events which were still fresh in his mind. These contemporaneous events and the princes who took part in them are used constantly as illustrations and warnings. Probably no other book gives one so lively a notion as does The Prince of the prevailing political spirit at the beginning of the sixteenth century. 2 232. Mach- iavelli's estimate of Ferdinand Nothing makes a prince so well thought of as to under take great enterprises and give striking proofs of his ca pacity. Among the princes of our time Ferdinand of Aragon, the of Aragon present king of Spain, may almost be accounted a new prince, since from one of the weakest he has become, for fame and glory, the foremost king in Christendom. And if you consider his achievements, you will find them all great, and some extraordinary. In the beginning of his reign he made war on Granada, which enterprise was the foundation of his power. At first he carried on the war leisurely, without fear of interruption, and kept the attention and thoughts of the barons of Castile so completely occupied with it that they had no time to think of changes at home. Meanwhile he insensibly acquired rep- utation among them and authority over them. With the 1 The best edition of // Principe in the original Italian is that edited with an admirable introduction and many notes by L. A. Burd ; pub- lished, with an interesting preface by Lord Acton, by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1891. The same press has issued a careful translation by N. H. Thomson (2d ed., 1897), which I have here followed. 2 Extracts from The Prince describing the spirit and policy of the Italian despots are given above, Vol. I, pp. 516 sqq.