sixteenth century--the Governo Misto--a political invention which
fascinated the imagination of Italian statesmen much in the same way as
the theory of perpetual motion attracted scientific minds in the last
century.[2] What follows is an elaborate scheme for applying the
principles of the Governo Misto to the existing state of things in
Florence. This lucid and learned disquisition is wound up (p. 188) with
a mournful expression of the doubt which hung like a thick cloud over
all the political speculations of both Guicciardini and Machiavelli: 'I
hold it very doubtful, and I think it much depends on chance whether
this disorganized constitution will ever take new shape or not ... and
as I said yesterday, I should have more hope if the city were but young;
seeing that not only does a state at the commencement take form with
greater facility than one that has grown old under evil governments, but
things always turn out more prosperously and more easily while fortune
is yet fresh and has not run its course,' etc.[3] In reading the
Dialogue on the Constitution of Florence it must finally be remembered
that Guicciardini has thrown it back into the year 1494, and that he
speaks through the mouths of four interlocutors. Therefore we may
presume that he intended his readers to regard it as a work of
speculative science rather than of practical political philosophy. Yet
it is not difficult to gather the drift of his own meaning.

[1] Cf. _Ricordi_, cxl.: 'Chi disse uno popolo, disse veramente
uno animale pazzo, pieno ni mille errori, di mille confusioni,
sanza gusto, sanza diletto, sanza stabilità.' It should be
noted that Guicciardini here and elsewhere uses the term Popolo
in its fuller democratic sense. The successive enlargements of
the burgher class in Florence, together with the study of Greek
and Latin political philosophy, had introduced the modern
connotation of the term.