ardi,
Pitti, Nerli, Guicciardini--The Political Importance of these
Writers--The Last Years of Florentine Independence, and the Siege of
1529--State of Parties--Filippo Strozzi--Different Views of Florentine
Weakness taken by the Historians--Their Literary Qualities--Francesco
Guicciardini and Niccolo Machiavelli--Scientific Statists--Discord
between Life and Literature--The Biography of Guicciardini--His 'Istoria
d'Italia,' 'Dialogo del Reggimento di Firenze,' 'Storia Fiorentina,'
'Ricordi'--Biography of Machiavelli--His Scheme of a National
Militia--Dedication of 'The Prince'--Political Ethics of the Italian
Renaissance--The Discorsi--The Seven Books on the Art of War and the
'History of Florence.'

Florence was essentially the city of intelligence in modern times. Other
nations have surpassed the Italians in their genius--the quality which
gave a superhuman power of insight to Shakespeare and an universal
sympathy to Goethe. But nowhere else except at Athens has the whole
population of a city been so permeated with ideas, so highly
intellectual by nature, so keen in perception, so witty and so subtle,
as at Florence. The fine and delicate spirit of the Italians existed in
quintessence among the Florentines. And of this superiority not only
they but the inhabitants also of Rome and Lombardy and Naples, were
conscious. Boniface VIII., when he received the ambassadors of the
Christian powers in Rome on the occasion of the Jubilee in 1300,
observed that all of them were citizens of Florence. The witticism which
he is said to have uttered, _i Fiorentini essere il quinto elemento_,
'that the men of Florence form a fifth element,' passed into a proverb.
The primacy of the Florentines in literature, the fine arts, law,
scholarship, philosophy, and science was acknowledged throughout Italy.

When the struggle for existence has been successfully terminated, and
the mere instinct of self-preservation no longer absorbs the activities
of a people, then the three chief motive forces of civilization begin to
operate. These are cupidity, or the desire of wealth and all that it
procures; curiosity, or the desire to discover new facts about the world
and man; and the love of beauty, which is the parent of all art.
Commerce, philosophy, science, scholarship, sculpture, architecture,
painting, music, poetry, are the products of these ruling
impulses--everything in fact which gives a higher value to the life of
man. Different nations