Fr. Guicciardini from Carpi, May 17, 1521, should be studied in
this connection. It is unfortunately too mutilated to be wholly
intelligible. After explaining his desire to be of use to
Florence, but not after the manner most approved of by the
Florentines themselves, he says: 'io credo che questo sarebbe
il vero modo di andare in Paradiso, imparare la via dell'
Inferno per fuggirla.'

The _Principe_, after its dedication to Lorenzo, remained in MS., and
Machiavelli was not employed in spite of the continual solicitations of
his friend Vettori.[1] Nothing remained for him but to seek other
patrons, and to employ his leisure in new literary work. Between 1516
and 1519, therefore, we find him taking part in the literary and
philosophical discussions of the Florentine Academy, which assembled at
that period in the Rucellai Gardens.[2] It was here that he read his
Discourses on the First Decade of Livy--a series of profound essays upon
the administration of the state, to which the sentences of the Roman
historian serve as texts. Having set forth in the _Principe_ the method
of gaining or maintaining sovereign power, he shows in the _Discorsi_
what institutions are necessary to preserve the body politic in a
condition of vigorous activity. We may therefore regard the _Discorsi_
as in some sense a continuation of the _Principe_. But the wisdom of the
scientific politician is no longer placed at the disposal of a
sovereign. He addresses himself to all the members of a state who are
concerned in its prosperity. Machiavelli's enemies have therefore been
able to insinuate that, after teaching tyranny in one pamphlet, he
expounded the principles of opposition to a tyrant in the other,
shifting his sails as the wind veered.[3] The truth here also lies in
the critical and scientific quality of Machiavelli's method. He was
content to lecture either to princes or to burghers upon politics, as an