re: #113 Decatur Deb

Didn’t he florence, or was he blocked?

On the subject of famous Florentines, I wonder how many people know that old Machiavelli was, arguably, one of the strongest defenders of the republican form of government during the period of the renaissance, and that to judge the man solely on the Price is to ignore the very specific pursposes for which the work was written, the “peculiarities” of the work itself, and the fact that he claims in the epistle dedicatory at the start to be “compelled” to present this as a gift to a prince, whereas the epistle dedicatory of his Discourses of Livy explains that the work is freely written and intended for his friends. There are enough points of difference between the two works to suggest that Machiavelli was up to something very cunning indeed with his Prince.