Page:The Works of the Famous Nicholas Machiavel.djvu/13



THE EPISTLE T O

C L E M E N T VII.

Eing commanded by your Holiness (whilst in a private condition) to write the History of ; I addressed my self to it with all the art and diligence wherewith Na- ture and Experience had endued me. Having deduced it to the times, in which, upon the death of Magnifico Lorenzo de Medici, the whole Form and Model of Italy was altered; and being to describe the height and impor- tance of what followed, in a loftier and more vigorous stile, I judged it best to reduce what I had written till those times into one Volume, and prsfent it to your Ho- liness, that you might at least have a taste of the Fruit you had sown your self, and of my Labour and Culti- vation. In the perusal of this Work, your Holiness will see first, to what ruine and convulsions our Country was exposed for many ages by the variations of Govern- ments, after the declension of the Roman Empire in the West. You will see how your Predecessors, the Ventians, the Kingdom of Naples, and the Dukedom of Milan took their turns of Empire and Sovereignty in this