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spirit_n	abate_v	able_a	great_a	39	3	2.3964	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50274	The works of the famous Nicholas Machiavel, citizen and secretary of Florence written originally in Italian, and from thence newly and faithfully translated into English.; Works. English. 1680	Machiavelli, Niccolò, 1469-1527.; Neville, Henry, 1620-1694.	1680 (1680)	Wing M129; ESTC R13145	904,161	562

every one would suspect him which would facilitate and hasten his ruine Others were not satisfied with this delay affirming that time would be more for his benefit than theirs and if they would proceed by cold delatory gradations Piero would run no hazard but they should run many For the Magistrats though they were his Enemies suffering him to enjoy the priviledges of the City his friends would make him Prince as had happened in 58 to their utter destruction and that though that Counsel was honest and peaceable yet this was wiser and more secure and therefore to be executed whilst the minds of the People were incensed the way they proposed was to arm at home and to entertain the Marquess of Ferrara into their pay abroad and when a Senate of their friends happened to meet then to rise and secure themselves as well as they could The result of all was that they should attend such a Senate and then make the best of their time Nicolo Fedmi who was employed as Chancellor was one of this Council who being tempted by greater and more practicable hopes discovered the whole Plot to Piero and gave him a list of the Conspirators and a Catalogue of the subscriptions Piero was astonished at the number and quality of his adversaries and upon consultation with his friends it was concluded that he also should take subscriptions and having committed the care of them to some of his confidents he found the Citizens so sickle and unstable that many of them who had subscribed to the Enemy came over and obliged themselves to him Whilst things were in this distraction the time came about in which the supream Magistracy was to be renewed to which Nicolo Soderini was advanced by the Gonfaloniere de Giustitia It was a wonder to see the concourse not only of the better sort of Citizens but of the common People which attended him to the Palace and put on an Olive Garland upon his head by the way to signifie that he was the Person upon whom the safety and the liberty of their City did depend By this and many examples of the same nature it is evident how inconvenient it is to enter upon the Magistracy or Government with more then ordinary acclamation for not being able to perform as is expected and for the most part more is required the People abate of their esteem and come by degrees to despise you Thomaso and Nicolo Soderini were Brothers Nicolo was a person of greater Spirit but Thomaso the more prudent Thomaso being a friend to Piero and knowing the humor of his Brother that he desired the liberty of the City and that the Government might be preserved without offence to any body he encouraged him to a new Squittini by which means the Borsi might be filled with the names of such Citizens as were lovers of liberty and the Government continued without violence as he desired Nicolo was easily persuaded by his Brother and suffered the time of his Magistracy to expire in the vanity of that opinion and his friends which were of the Conspiracy were well enough contented as being already emulous of him and not desiring the reformation should fall out during his authority presuming they could effect it when they pleas'd though another was Gonfaloniere Whereupon his office expired with less honor than he entred upon it by reason he had begun many good things but perfected nothing This accident fortified the party of Piero exceedingly confirmed his friends and brought over such as were neuter so that though all things were ready on all sides they were delaid for several months and not the least tumult appeared Nevertheless Piero's party encreasing his Enemies began to resent it and met together to perform that by force which they might more easily have done before by means of the Magistrates in order to which they concluded to kill Piero who was at that same time sick at C●rreggi and cause the Marquess of Ferrara to advance towards the City for when Piero was dead they resolved to come armed to the Palace and force the Senate to settle the Government as they should direct for though all of them were not their friends yet they doubted not but to fright them into a concurrence Diotisalvi to disguise his designe visited Piero very often discoursed with him about unit●●ing the factions and advised him very frankly But Piero was informed of the whole conspiracy and besides Domenico Martegli had given him notice that Francesco Neroni the Brother of Diotisalvi had been tempting him to their party assuring him of success Hereupon Piero resolved to be first in arms and took occasion from their practices with the Marquess of Ferrara He pretended he had received a Letter from Gicvanni Bentivogli Prince of Bologna importing that the Marquess of Ferrara was with certain forces upon the River Albo and that it was given out his design was for Florence upon which intelligence Piero pretended to arm and attended by a great number of armed men he came to the City At his arrival his whole party took arms and the adversary did the same yet not in so good order as Piero for his men were prepared and the other surprised Diotisalvi's Palacebeing not far from Piero's Diotisalvi judged himself insecure at home and therefore went up and down sometimes exhorting the Senate to cause Piero to lay down his Arms sometimes seeking out Luca and encouraging him to be constant but the briskest and most couragious of them all was Nicolo Soderini who taking Arms immediatly and being followed by most of the Populace of his quarter went to Luca's house intreated him to mount and march with him to the Palace for the security of the Senate who he assured him were of his side by doing of which the Victory would be certain but if he remained in his house he would run the hazard of being slain by those who were armed or abused by those who were not and then he would repent him when too late whereas now it was in his power by force of Arms to ruine Piero if he pleased or if he desired peace it was more honorable to give conditions than to receive them But all his Rhetorick could not work upon Luca he had altered his mind and received new promises of Alliances and rewards from Piero and already married on of his Nieces to Giovanni Tornabuoni so that instead of being persuaded by him he admonished Nicolo to lay down and return quietly to his house for he ought to be satisfied that the City should be governed by its Magistrats for whether he was satisfied or not it would be so all People would lay down their Arms and the Senate having the stronger party would be Judges of their quarrel There being no remedy and Nicolo having no where else to dispose himself went back to his house but before he departed he told him thus I cannot alone do this City any service but I can prognosticate its miseries The resolution

so to evince and demonstrate the courage of an Italian spirit it was necessary that Italy should be reduced to its present condition That it should be in greater bondage than the Iews in greater servitude than the Persians and in greater dispersion than the Athenians without Head without order harras'd spoyl'd overcome over-run and over-flown with all kind of Calamity and though formerly some sparks of virtue have appeared in some persons that might give it hopes that God had ordained them for its redemption yet it was found afterwards that in the very height and career of their exploits they were check'd and forsaken by Fortune and poor Italy left half dead expecting who would be her Samaritan to bind up her wounds put an end to the Sackings and devastations in Lombardy the Taxes and Expilations in the Kingdom of Naples and Tuscany and cure her sores which length of time had fester'd and imposthumated 'T is manifest how she prays to God daily to send some person who may redeem her from the cruelty and insolence of the Barbarians 'T is manifest how prone and ready she is to follow the Banner that any man will take up nor is it at present to be discerned where she can repose her hopes with more probability than in your illustrious Family which by its own courage and interest and the favour of God and the Church of which it is now chief may be induced to make it self Head in her redemption which will be no hard matter to be effected if you lay before you the lives and actions of the persons above named who though they were rare and wonderful were yet but men and not accommodated with so fair circumstances as you Their Enterprize was not more just nor easie nor God Almighty more their friend than yours You have Justice on your side for that War is just which is necessary and 't is piety to fight were no hope is left in any thing else The people are universally disposed and where the disposition is so great the opposition can be but small especially you taking your rules from those persons which I have proposed to you for a Model Besides many things that they did were super-natural and by Gods immediate Conduct the Sea opened a cloud directed a rock afforded water it rained Manna all these things are recompenced in your Grandeur and the rest remains to be executed by you God will not do every thing immediately because he will not deprive us of our free will and the honour that devolves upon us Nor is it any wonder if none of the fore-named Italians have been able to do that which may be hoped for from your illustrious Family and if in so many revolutions in Italy and so long continuation of War their Military Virtue seems spent and extinguished the reason is their old Discipline was not good and no body was able to direct to a better Nothing makes so much to the honour of a new Prince as new Laws and new Orders invented by him which if they be well founded and carry any thing of Grandeur along with them do render him venerable and wonderful and Italy is susceptible enough of any new form Their courage is great enough in the Soldier if it be not wanting in the Officer witness the Duels and Combats in which the Italians have generally the better by their force and dexterity and stratagem but come to their Battels and they have oftner the worst and all from the inexperience of their Commanders for those who pretend to have Skill will never obey and every one thinks he has Skill there having been no body to this very day raised by his virtue and fortune to that height of reputation as to prevail with others to obey him Hence it came that in so long time in the many Wars during the last twenty years when ever an Army consisted wholly of Italians it was certainly beaten and this may be testified by Tarus Alexandria Capua Genoa Vaila Bologna and Mestri If therefore your illustrious Family be inclined to follow the examples of those excellent persons who redeemed their Countries it is necessary as a true fundamental of all great Enterprizes to provide your selves with Forces of your own Subjects for you cannot have more faithful nor better Soldiers than they And though all of them be good yet altogether they will be much better when they find themselves not only commanded but preferred and caressed by a Prince of their own It is necessary therefore to be furnished with these Forces before you can be able with Italian virtue to vindicate your Country from the oppression of Strangers And though the Swiss and Spanish Infantry be counted terrible they have both of them their defects and a third sort may be composed that may not only encounter but be confident to beat them for the Spanish Foot cannot deal with Horse and the Swiss are not invincible when they meet with Foot as obstinate as themselves It has been seen by experience and would be so again the Spaniards cannot sustain the fury of the French Cavalry and the Swisses have been overthrown by the Infantry of Spain And though of this last we have seen no perfect Experiment yet we had a competent Essay at the Battel of Ravenna where the Spanish Foot being engaged with the German Battalions which observe the same Order and Discipline with the Swisses the Spaniards by the agility of their Bodies and the protection of their Bucklers broke in under their Pikes and killed them securely while the poor Germans were uncapable to defend themselves and had not the Spaniards been charged by the Horse the German Foot had been certainly cut off 'T is possible therefore the defect of both those Foot being known to institute a third which may buckle with the Horse and be in no fear of their foot which will be effected not by the variation of their Arms but by changing their Discipline And these are some of those things which being newly reformed give great grandeur and reputation to any new Prince This opportunity therefore is by no means to be slip'd that Italy after so long expectation may see some hopes of deliverance Nor can it be expressed with what joy with what impatience of revenge with what fidelity with what compassion with what Tears such a Champion would be received into all the Provinces that have suffered by those barbarous inundations What Gates would be shut against him What people would deny him obedience what malice would oppose him what true Italian would refuse to follow him There is not there is not any body but abhors and nauseates this barbarous domination Let your illustrious Family then address it self to the work with as much Courage and Confidence as just Enterprizes are undertaken That under their Ensigns our Country may be recovered and under their Conduct Petrarch's Prophesie may be fulfilled who has promised that Virtu contr ' al furore Prendera l' arme

Pistoia which 15 years since as it is now was divided into the Panciatichi and Cancellieri only then they were at open defyance which now they are not After many contests and disputes among themselves they proceeded to blood to the plundering and demolishing one anothers houses and committing all other hostilities imaginable The Florentines whose business it was to unite them used this third way which rather encreased than mitigated their tumults so that weary of that way and grown wiser by experience they made use of the second banished some of the Ring-leaders and imprisoned the rest whereby they not only quieted their differences then but have kept them so ever since But doubtless the safest way had been to cut them off at first and if those executions were forborn then by us or have been since by any other Commonwealth it is for no other cause but that they require a certain generosity and greatness of spirit that in weak Commonwealths is hardly to be found And these are the errors which as I said in the beginning are committed by the Princes of our times when they are to determine in such great controversies for they should inform themselves how others have comported in the same cases before them but they are so weak by reason of the slightness of our present education and their unexperience in History that they look upon the examples of the ancients as inhumane or impossible So that our modern opinions are as remote from the truth as that saying of our wise men was upon a time Che bisognavatener Pistoiacon le parti Pisacon le fortezze That Pistoia was to be kept under by factions and Pisa by a Citadel but they were mistaken in both What my judgment is about Citadels and such kind of Fortresses I have delivered elsewhere so as in this place I shall only demonstrate how unpracticable it is to keep Towns in subjection by fomenting their differences and factions and first it is impossible to keep both parties true to you be you Prince or Commonwealth or whatever for men are naturally so inconstant it cannot be that those parties which favour you to day should be affected to you always for they will still look out for some new Patron and Protector so that by degrees one of the parties taking some disgust against you the next War that happens you run a great hazard of losing your Town If it be under the Government of a State the City is in more danger than in the other case because each party looks out for friends among the great ones and will spare no pains nor mony to corrupt them From whence two great inconveniences do arise One is you can never make them love you because by reason of the frequent alteration of Governors and putting in sometimes a person of one humour and sometimes another of another they can never be well govern'd And then the other is by this fomenting of Factions your State must be necessarily divided Blondus speaking of the passages betwixt the Florentines and Pistoians confirms what we have said in these words Mentreche i Florentini dis●gnavano de riunir Pistoia divisono se Medesimi Whilst the Florentines thought to have united the Pistoians they divided themselves In the year 1501. Arezzo revolted from the Florentines and the Valleys di Tenere and Chiana were entirely over-run by the Vitelli and Duke Valentine Whereupon Monsieur de Lant was sent from the King of France to see all that they had lost restored to the Florentines Wherever Monsieur de Lant came observing the persons that came to visit him did still profess themselves of the party of Morzocco he was much dissatisfied with their factions and more that they should declare themselves so freely for said he if in France any man should pronounce himself of the King's party he would be sure to be punished because it would imply that there was a party against the King and it was his Masters desire that his Kingdom and Cities should be all of a mind If therefore a Prince believes there is no way for him to keep his Towns in obedience but by keeping up Factions it is a certain argument of his weakness for being unable by force and courage to keep them under he betakes himself to these pernicious arts which in peaceable times may palliate a little but when troubles and adversity come will assuredly deceive him CHAP. XXVIII A strict eye is to be kept upon the Citizens for many times under pretence of Officiousness and Piety there is hid a principle of Tyranny The City of Rome being distressed for want of provisions and the publick stores being unable to supply it it came into the thoughts of Spurius Melius a rich Citizen of those times to furnish the Common people gratis out of his own private stock whereby he wrought himself so far into the favour of the people that the Senate suspecting the ill consequences of his bounty began to conspire his destruction before his interest became too great to which purpose they created a Dictator who put him to death from whence it may be observed that many times those actions which seem charitable and pious at first sight and are not reasonable to be condemned are notwithstanding cruel and dangerous for a State if not corrected in time To make this more clear I say a Commonwealth cannot be well governed nor indeed subsist without the assistance and ministry of powerful and great men and yet on the other side that power and reputation of particular Citizens is the occasion of tyranny To regulate this inconvenience it is necessary that seeing there must be great men things should be so ordered that they may have praise and reputation by such things as are rather useful than prejudicial to the State Wherefore it is carefully to be observed what ways they take to acquire their reputation and they are usually two either publick or private The publick way is when they arrive at their reputation by some good counsel or some great exploit which they have atchieved for the benefit of the publick and this way of reputation is not only not to be precluded to the Citizens but to be opened by such promises of reward for their good counsels or actions as may both dignify and inrich them and when a reputation is gained by these plain and sincere ways it is never to be feared But when their courses are private which is the other of the two ways they are dangerous nay totally pernitious Those private ways are by obliging particular persons by lending them mony by marrying their relations by defending them against the Magistrates and doing several other particular favours which may encourage their Clients to violate the Laws and vitiate the Commonwealth for which cause it ought to be so well fortified with good Laws that the endeavors of such ambitious men may be either discouraged or defeated and on the other side rewards proposed to such as