hapter of the
_Principe_ gives a short sketch of the growth of the temporal
power, so framed as to be acceptable to the Medici, but steeped
in the most acid irony. See, in particular, the sentence
'Costoro solo hanno stati e non li difendono, hanno sudditi e
non li governano,' etc.

[3] See the dispatch quoted by Gregorovius, _Stadt Rom_, vol.
vii. p. 7, note.

[4] _Op. Ined. Ricordi_ No. 28. Compare Ariosto, Satire i.
208-27.

[5] Guicciardini had been secretary and vicegerent of the
Medicean Popes. See back, p. 206.

These utterances are all the more remarkable because they do not proceed
from the deep sense of holiness which animated reformers like
Savonarola. Machiavelli was not zealous for the doctrines of
Christianity so much as for the decencies of an established religion. In
one passage of the _Discorsi_ he even pronounces his opinion that the
Christian faith compared with the creeds of antiquity, had enfeebled
national spirit.[1] Privately, moreover, he was himself stained with the
moral corruption which he publicly condemned. Guicciardini, again, in
the passage before us, openly avows his egotism. Keen-sighted as they
were in theory, these politicians suffered in their own lives from that
gangrene which had penetrated the upper classes of Italy to the marrow.
Their patriotism and their desire for righteousness were not strong
enough to make them relinquish the pleasure and the profit they derived
from the existing state of things. Nor had they the energy or the
opportunity to institute a thorough revolution. Italy, as Machiavelli
pointed out in another passage of the _Discorsi_, had become too
prematurely decrepit for reinvigorating changes;[2] and the splendid
appeal with which the _Principe_ is closed must even to its author have
sounded like a flourish of rhetorical trumpets.

[1] _Discorsi_, ii. 2, iii. 1. These chapters breathe the
bitterest contempt for Christianity, the most undisguised
hatred for its historical development, the intensest rancor
against Catholic ecclesiastics.

[2] _Discorsi_, i. 55.

Moreover, it seemed impossible for an Italian to rise above the
conception of a merely formal reformation, or to reach that higher
principle of life which consists in the enunciation of a new religious
truth. The whole argument in the _Discorsi_ which precedes the chapter I
have quoted, treats religion not in its essence as pure Chri