is private letters a picture of
the life to which this statesman of the restless brain was condemned in
the solitude of the country.[1] Writing on December 10 to his friend
Francesco Vettori, he says, 'I am at my farm; and, since my last
misfortunes, have not been in Florence twenty days. I rise with the sun,
and go into a wood of mine that is being cut, where I remain two hours
inspecting the work of the previous day and conversing with the
woodcutters, who have always some trouble on hand among themselves or
with their neighbors. When I leave the wood, I proceed to a well, and
thence to the place which I use for snaring birds, with a book under my
arm--Dante, or Petrarch, or one of the minor poets, like Tibullus or
Ovid. I read the story of their passions, and let their loves remind me
of my own, which is a pleasant pastime for a while. Next I take the
road, enter the inn door, talk with the passers-by, inquire the news of
the neighborhood, listen to a variety of matters, and make note of the
different tastes and humors of men. This brings me to dinner-time, when
I join my family and eat the poor produce of my farm. After dinner I go
back to the inn, where I generally find the host and a butcher, a
miller, and a pair of bakers. With these companions I play the fool all
day at cards or backgammon: a thousand squabbles, a thousand insults and
abusive dialogues take place, while we haggle over a farthing, and shout
loud enough to be heard from San Casciano. But when evening falls I go
home and enter my writing-room. On the threshold I put off my country
habit, filthy with mud and mire, and array myself in royal courtly
garments; thus worthily attired, I make my entrance into the ancient
courts of the men of old, where they receive me with love, and where I
feed upon that food which only is my own and for which I was born. I
feel no shame in conversing with them and asking them the reason of
their actions. They, moved by their humanity, make answer; for four
hours' space I feel no annoyance, forget all care; poverty cannot
frighten, nor death appall me. I am carried away to their society. And
since Dante says "that there is no science unless we retain what we have
learned," I have set down what I have gained from their discourse, and
composed a treatise, _De Principatibus_, in which I enter as deeply as I
can into the science of the subject, with reasonings on the nature of
principality, its several species, and how they ar