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Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) - The Age of the Despots by John Addington Symonds
page 280 of 583 (48%)
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 are acquired, how
maintained, how lost. If you ever liked any of my scribblings, this
ought to suit your taste. To a prince, and especially to a new prince,
it ought to prove acceptable. Therefore I am dedicating it to the
Magnificence of Giuliano.'

[1] This letter may be compared with others of about the same
date. In one (Aug. 3, 1514) he says: 'Ho lasciato dunque i
pensieri delle cose grandi e gravi, non mi diletta più leggere
le cose antiche, nè ragionare delle moderne; tutte si son
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