Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 12.djvu/698

* MACHIAVELLI. 618 MACHINE ENGRAVING. vrnment in Florence, advocating the reiictablish- nient of the Kepublic. He was commissioned by the directors of the Studio Publico, chielly through the influence of Cardinal Giulio de' !Mcdici (to whom as Pope Clement VII. the work was dedicated), to write a history of Flor- ■ence. For this work, the Istorie fioreiiHiw, he received a yearly stipend of one hundred florins. lie was thus actively engaged in literary work during his later years, and in 1521 lie resumed oflicial work for the State, and was again em- ployed on diplomatic missions in Italy. Keturn- iug to Florence from one of these absences in May, 1527, he became ill and died, .lune 22d. His body was buried in the family vault in the Church of Santa Croce, and in 17S7, through the efforts of Earl Cowper, a moniunent was erected to his uu'inory over his tomb. Machiavclli's life was full of disappointments and he was not one of those idealists who could live above and apart from the things of this "world. He was preeminently a man of allairs, whose studies and activities were inseparably connected with human society in its most active phases. It is as a writer upon history, di- plomacy, and politics that he holds a high and important place. In this field his position as a man of letters and as a thinker is secure. Here his style is at its best and he imparts to all his work the keen interest that belongs to a direct and vigorous realism. As a historian he is not critical in the treatment of his material, but in other respects he belongs to the modern historical school, his discriminating philosophical method marking a sharp breaking away from the mediaeval tj'pe of chronicler and a return to the m.odels of the classical historians. His principal historical work was the Hislor;/ of Florence, in eight books, beginning with the Germanic inva- sions and continuing down to the death of Lo- renzo de' lledici. ilore useful, however, to the student to-day are his numerous reports upon his diplomatic missions, and the brief papers on foreign affairs growing out of them. The un- finished Life of CastruccAo Castracani is of little value. Aside from the notes on diplomacy and politics contained in his diplomatic papers, Machiavclli's political system is embodied in the Prince and the Discourses, neither of which is complete with- out the other. The cjniical maxims which abound in them have given the writer an evil reputation which he does not deserve. It must always be remembered that JIachiavelli did not discuss ideal, but actual conditions: and drew his deductions from the facts acquired by close observation. He thus became the founder of the modern school of scientiflc politics. Look- ing at his system in a large way and eliminating the cynicism which his environment naturally produced, we find that much of Avhat he set forth has been adopted by the soundest political science of to-day. JIachiavelli had no faith in aristocracies. He recognized but two forms of government as practicable — absolutism and the democratic republic. The latter was his ideal, but the former he believed to be sometimes neces- sary. As the first exponent of the idea of a united Italy he showed in the Prince how that gi-cat end might be brought about by efficient leadership. The Discourses elaborate the idea of a republic upon the same fundamental principles. He did not believe that the great ends of govern- ment in the upbuilding of the State should be sacrificed to abstract ethics. He was the fore- runner of the school of political thinkers who divorce ethics and politics, not because they are necessarily in conflict, but because they are dis- tinct sciences. His system in general is one of policy, resting on the inherent imperfection of men and looking to the balance of conllicting evils. It is in no sense a theoretical political philosophy, though it seems to have such a phi- losophy in view. Of jMacliiavelli's writings only the Art of War was printed during his life. A few years after his death the Discourses, the Prince, and Histori/ of Florence were printed at Rome with the au- thorization of Pope Clement VII., but Paul IV. put them on the Index Expnrgatorius, and this was confirmed b.y the Council of Trent in 1563. Eight years later the Commission on the Index proposed to Machiavclli's descendants to publish an expurgated edition, the author's name being suppressed. This offer was rejected. In 1772 a partial edition in three volumes was published in London; and in 1782 Earl Cowper published a four-volume edition at his own cost. They were not published in Italy until the nineteenth cen- tury, when the Milan (1810-11) and the Italia (1813) editions appeared. A new edition was begun in 1873 by Passerini and Jlilanesi, but was not completed. An admirable English transla- tion of the historical, diplomatic, and political writings is that of Detmold, The Writings of yiccold MachiaveUi (Boston, 1891). The' best biography and commentarj' on his place in his- tory is Villari, Niecolo Maehiaielli e i suoi tempi (1877-82; Eng. trans, by Linde Villari, London, 1892). See also Mourrisson, ilachinvel (Paris, 1883) ; Tommasini, La vita e gli scritti di Nic- cold Machiareili (Turin. 1882). The Prince is published in numerous editions in Italian, Eng- lish, and other languages; for literature relating to it, see Mohl, (leschichte und Litteratur der Staatsicissenschaft (Erlangen, 1855-58). MACHIM, mak'im, Robert. The name given in a romantic story to an Englishman who fled from England to France with his lady-love. Anna d'Arfet, in 1346. The lovers were driven from their course by a storm and weie cast ashore on the island of Madeira, where they founded a town called Machico. The island appears, how- ever, to have been discovered at a much earlier date. MACHINE, MACHINERY (in engineer- ing). See MechaxiC-VL Powers — M.vchixe.s; ]Metal- Working :MACI^I^'EEY ; Wood-Working Machinery ; etc. MACHINE ENGRAVING. A process in- volving the use of a machine to engrave wood, metal, or stone. Machinery has been devised which will carry on many of the manual opera- tions of an engraver and produce regular tints, geometrical designs, and other symmetrical pat- terns with greater accuracy and far more rapid- ity than would be possible by hand work. The first machine of this description was invented by Wilson Lowry. and was known as a ruling machine, being employed to engrave such me- chanical features of a plate as the plain back- ground, skies, etc. In most machines for engrav- ing, the tool is so arranged that after each cut it can be moved a certain definite amount so that at the next stroke a parallel line is cut at a