V
AT SAN CASCIANO
Taking a pen from the table, he mended it to his own fashion, and wrote:
"Thomas Cromwell to his most excellent friend, Master William Bates, greeting. I am removed to the farmhouse of La Strada at San Casciano for a short time, having left Florence on account of the great heat and an indisposition of my stomach, caused by a surfeit of raw ham and figs: for it is the custom of this people, when the figs ripen, to make an excursion to their villas, or the farms of their tenants, and having brought with them a number of small hams, smoked and excellently well flavoured, which they cut into thin slices, they sit in the shade of a fig-tree, and make a great feasting. Messer Frescobaldi carried me to such a feast at one of his neighbouring villas, and I, whether from the novelty of the dish, which savours deliciously, and is exciting to the palate, or from a natural intemperance of appetite, having eaten immoderately of figs and ham, and having drunk a vast quantity of wine, was seized on my return to Florence with violent pains and cramps in the stomach, accompanied by much retching and colic. Messer Frescobaldi, having sent for his physician to come to me, I was blooded eight ounces, and am now somewhat recovered, though in much need of rest, and the coolness of the country air.
"But since I am charged with the execution of your business rather than with the recreation of mine own health, let me say that the matter of the Lucca merchants is settled, on the terms mentioned in the enclosed treaty, and such produce as you require will be sent as occasion offers, whether by France or Antwerp, depending upon the state of the rival nations; but in so far as is possible the goods will be shipped at Genoa by the Fuggers, and carried thence to Antwerp, to be reladed at your own charge, and carried to your brother at Boston, or on a ship of the Fuggers' trading with England, in which case they will be delivered to yourself at the sign of the Blue Anchor, in Chepeside. The late ordinances directing that all shrouds shall be made of woollen, and forbidding the export of raw wool out of England, and the question of the staple, have caused much ill-feeling against English merchants, both at Antwerp and Florence; wherefore I think it would be wise to commission the Fuggers to buy for you, and to colour your goods with their name, more especially in the Baltic trade. The same offices will, at your request, be undertaken by Messer Frescobaldi here and throughout Italy, both with the cloth merchants of Florence and the glass workers and silk merchants of Venice; but, in matters connected with your trade with the latter town, Messer Frescobaldi demands that you place a sum of money in his bank, sufficient to cover the charges of the import and the export duty, or, that such moneys as he may advance on your behalf for the payment of these imposts be charged against you at one and a half per cent. above the current rate, so that in the one case he hath the use of your money, and in the other a large interest upon his own. You will easily see by the treaty that I have relinquished to him rather the shadow than the substance of what he desired; but I do feel it my duty to beseech you that in every wise you show him such convenience and fair dealing as you may, without hurt to your own prosperity, since by your acting in this fashion he will be the less likely to repudiate the contract as a cheat devised for his beguiling.
"Returning to mine own affairs. I am the guest of one Niccolo Machiavelli, an honest and courteous man, with much wit, and knowledge of the ancients. He was sometime in the service of the late Republic, but was after suspected, and removed from his office by the Medici faction. Having been racked on a false charge of treason, he retired hither, and by a frugal expenditure hath somewhat mended his fortune, so that he is embarrassed neither by the cares of wealth, nor the vexations of poverty. At first, however, since a republican and popular government considers all the citizens to be its servants, as much through their own duty as from any hope of a fair remuneration, he, having been able to save little of his pay, was in great straits, so that he was forced to rise ere it was light, and spread nets for thrushes and quails, superintend his idle workmen, and busy himself with a thousand trifling cares: wherefore I think it more profitable to serve a tyrant than a free people. He hath now acquired by his own efforts that leisure which his public service and former poverty denied him, so that he can pass his day in pleasant discourse, studying the diverse manners and habits of men, or reading in his library, in which he doth greatly delight. The library itself, in which I am now writing, is a long, airy room, having a pleasant aspect toward the south-west; but it overlooks the courtyard, and one is continually disturbed through the day by the foolish cackle of hens and other farmyard racket. He told me that he chose the room on his first coming hither, whereat his wife made a great clamour complaining that he had taken for his own uses the one serviceable room in the house, which is indeed the truth. She is well looking and I would willingly see more of her; but she is a notable woman, and, as is usual with her sex, occupied all day long by a thousand nothings, whereat I think he is marvellously contented, esteeming himself fortunate in that she differs from the majority of wives, who continually invade the privacy of men, and use our apartments as their own. Set against the walls are great chests of carven and painted wood, which contain his manuscripts and printed books, the Latin poets as well as the historians and orators, besides those Italian authors who have gained an eternity of fame, more especially Dante Alighieri and Petrarch. Here, among this choice store of what the world hath accounted noble in thought or action, we sit far into the night with a flagon of wine between us, and such entertainment as our own wits provide, relishing in our conversation both the sal nigrum of Momus, and the sal candidum which Mercurius gave.
"At first, seeing the ingenious and subtle mind of my friend, I was at a loss to account for his apparent failure in assuring his own fortune; but, knowing him better, I see that his judgment, never at fault in dealing with things afar off, may be perplexed and misled when it comes to bear upon present affairs; being so great in himself he doth sometimes forget of what poor account in Europe are his countrymen to-day. He is at present making a series of discourses upon politics, which he reads in the gardens of Cosimo Rucellai, where the meetings of the Academy are held. It was at one of these meetings, after the company had dispersed, that I first had speech of him; in which traverses, though the chief subject of his discourse is Livy's history of the Roman Republic, he draweth his examples from many sources, and showeth how mankind hath always been prone to the same faults, and in like circumstances will always act in a like manner without regard for the lessons and warnings of the past.
"In the intervals of preparing these discourses against their occasions, and of refining those which he hath read, he giveth much time and labour to the polishing of a little treatise or manual for princes; a work full of seasonable matter, which I have read with much profit and agreement, for he reasons not, as the schoolmen use, from some abstract theory of the universe, with which all events must be forced into harmony, but gathering together the facts of common experience, he derives from the perfect understanding of them the principles of his philosophy; wherefore I say that he hath invented a new science, and added a tenth muse to the choir of Apollo. And to show you the satiric nature of the man, I must tell you, that having dedicated his treatise of The Prince to Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici, in the hope of some advancement and reward, and being disappointed of this hope, in the dedication of his Discourses to Zanobi Buondelmonte and Cosimo Rucellai he says, 'Though I have been mistaken on many occasion, yet certainly I have made no error in offering my Discourses to you. For in this I think to have shown some gratitude for benefits received, and to have abandoned the path habitually trodden by those who make a trade of writing, and whose custom it is to dedicate their works to some prince, to whom, in the blindness of their ambition or of their avarice, and in the pouring out of their empty flatteries, they attribute all the virtues, instead of making him blush for his vices. To avoid falling into that vulgar fault I have made choice, not indeed of a prince, but of those who merit to be princes.... Moreover, historians give greater praise to Hieron, a plain citizen of Syracuse, than to Perseus, King of Macedonia, for Hieron lacked none of the qualities of kingliness, except the name, while Perseus had no other than the kingdom.' So doth he think to repay them for their neglect.
"This satiric quality doth characterise all his writing, whether he be dealing with the sacred or the profane; indeed he doth make no difference between the books of Moses and the books of Livy, but treats both in the same way, as the record of past events; and though God forbid that I should seem to doubt the truth of Scripture, yet it is my opinion that the writings of Moses are not to be apprehended by the plain man, being full of mystery and divinity, which only a clerk can expound. Thus, in one place, after enumerating the great law-givers of old; Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and the like, he adds: 'And though perhaps I ought not to name Moses, he being merely an instrument for carrying out the divine commands, he is still to be admired for those qualities which made him worthy to converse with God; but if we consider Cyrus and the others who have acquired or founded kingdoms, they will all be seen to be admirable, and if their actions and the particular institutions of which they were the authors be studied, they will be found not to differ from those of Moses, though he was instructed by so great a teacher.'
"This is either too simple, or too subtile, for men of godly and pious dispositions. Indeed, I think that by indulging his delight in irony he hath made himself distrusted; for the depravity of human nature is such, that, where two interpretations can be put upon words, mankind will ordinarily choose the sense which is evil instead of that which is good. Witness the following, on ecclesiastical princedoms: 'All the difficulties of ecclesiastical princedoms precede their acquisition: for they are acquired by merit or good fortune, but are maintained without either, being upheld by the venerable ordinances of religion, which are all of such a nature and efficacy that they secure the authority of their princes in whatever way they may act or live. These princes alone have territories which they do not defend, and subjects whom they do not govern; yet, though undefended, their territories are not taken from them, nor are their subjects concerned at not being governed or led to think of throwing off their allegiance; nor is it in their power to do so. Accordingly these princedoms alone are secure and happy. But inasmuch as they are sustained by agencies of a higher nature than the mind of man can reach, I forbear to speak of them; for, since they are set up and supported by God himself, he would be a rash and presumptuous man who should venture to discuss them.' It hath a double edge, and though some may be found to declare the intention innocent, since the book is addressed to a relative of the Pope, I would rather infer from that the greater daring of the author. But lest you yourself, who are curious in such matters, should doubt whether the intention be malicious or innocent, I shall explain further his opinions, both in the matter of Moses, and in the matter of ecclesiastical princedoms. For in two discourses at the Rucellai gardens, at which I was present, he returned to these subjects, and said: 'In fact no legislator has ever given his people a new body of laws, without alleging the intervention of the divinity; for otherwise they would not have been accepted. It is certain that there exist many benefits of which a wise and prudent man foresees the consequences, but nevertheless of which the evidence is not sufficiently striking to convince all minds. To resolve that difficulty the wise man hath recourse to the gods.... The Florentines believe themselves to be neither ignorant nor rude, and, nevertheless, Fra Girolamo Savonarola made them believe that he had conversations with God. I do not pretend to decide if he were right or wrong, for one should not speak without respect of so extraordinary a man. I only say, that a great multitude of people believed him, without having seen anything supernatural which could justify their belief; but his whole life, his knowledge, and the subject of his discourses, should have been enough to make them give credence to his words. One must never be astonished at having failed to-day, where others once succeeded; for mankind, as I have said in my preface, are born, live, and die, according to the same laws.'