s a son of whom his
country may be justly proud.

Hugo Albert Rennert.

[*] Villari, _Niccolo Machiavelli e i suoi tempi_, 2d ed.
Milan, 1895-97, the best work on the subject. The most
complete bibliography of Machiavelli up to 1858 is to be
found in Mohl, _Gesch. u. Liter. der Staatswissenshaften_,
Erlangen, 1855, III., 521-91. See also _La Vita e gli
scritti di Niccolo Machiavelli nella loro Relazione col
Machiavellismo_, by O. Tommasini, Turin, 1883 (unfinished).

The best English translation of Machiavelli with which I am
acquainted is: The Historical, Political, and Diplomatic
writings of Niccolo Machiavelli, translated by Christian E.
Detmold. Osgood & Co., Boston, 1882, 4 vols. 8vo.

THE FLORENTINE HISTORY OF NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

Irruption of Northern people upon the Roman
territories--Visigoths--Barbarians called in by Stilicho--Vandals
in Africa--Franks and Burgundians give their names to France and
Burgundy--The Huns--Angles give the name to England--Attila, king of the
Huns, in Italy--Genseric takes Rome--The Lombards.

The people who inhabit the northern parts beyond the Rhine and the
Danube, living in a healthy and prolific region, frequently increase to
such vast multitudes that part of them are compelled to abandon their
native soil, and seek a habitation in other countries. The method
adopted, when one of these provinces had to be relieved of its
superabundant population, was to divide into three parts, each
containing an equal number of nobles and of people, of rich and of poor.
The third upon whom the lot fell, then went in search of new abodes,
leaving the remaining two-thirds in possession of their native country.

These migrating masses destroyed the Roman empire by the facilities for
settlement which the country offered when the emperors abandoned
Rome, the ancient seat of their dominion, and fixed their residence at
Constantinople; for by this step they exposed the western empire to
the rapine of both their ministers and their enemies, the remoteness of
their position preventing them either from seeing or providing for
its necessities. To suffer the overthrow of such an extensive empire,
established by the blood of so many brave and virtuous men, showed no
less folly in the princes themselves than infidelity in their ministers;
for not one irruption alone, but many, contributed to its ruin;
and t