ed June 10, 1514, to Fr. Vettori:
'Starommi dunque cosi tra i miei cenci, senza trovare uomo che
della mia servitu si ricordi, o che creda che io possa esser
buono a nulla. Ma egli e impossibile che io possa star molto
cosi, perche io mi logoro,' etc. Again, Dec. 20, 1514: 'E se la
fortuna avesse voluto che i Medici, o in cosa di Firenze o di
fuora, o in cose loro particolari o in pubbliche, mi avessino
una volta comandato, io sarei contento.'

This letter, invaluable to the student of Machiavelli's works, is
prejudicial to his reputation. It was written only ten months after he
had been imprisoned and tortured by the Medici, just thirteen months
after the republic he had served so long had been enslaved by the
princes before whom he was now cringing. It is true that Machiavelli was
not wealthy; his habits of prodigality made his fortune insufficient for
his needs.[1] It is true that he could ill bear the enforced idleness of
country life, after being engaged for fifteen years in the most
important concerns of the Florentine Republic. But neither his poverty,
which, after all, was but comparative, nor his inactivity, for which he
found relief in study, justifies the tone of the conclusion to this
letter. When we read it, we cannot help remembering the language of
another exile, who while he tells us--

Come sa di sale
Lo pane altrui, e com' e duro calle
Lo scendere e 'l salir per l' altrui scale

--can yet refuse the advances of his factious city thus: 'If Florence
cannot be entered honorably, I will never set foot within her walls. And
what? Shall I not be able from any angle whatsoever of the earth to gaze
upon the sun and stars? shall I not beneath whatever region of the
heavens have power to meditate the sweetest truths, unless I make myself
ignoble first, nay ignominious, in the face of Florence and her people?
Nor will bread, I warrant, fail me!' If Machiavelli, who in this very
letter to Vettori quoted Dante, had remembered these words, they ought
to have fallen like drops of molten lead upon his soul. But such was the
debasement of the century that probably he would have only shrugged his
shoulders and sighed, 'Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.'

[1] See familiar letter, June 10, 1514.

In some respects Dante, Machiavelli, and Michael Angelo Buonarroti may
be said to have been the three greatest intellects produced by Florence.
Dante in exile and