Excerpt from Florentine History N icolo machiavelli, who was born in 1469 and died in I 527, received a commission in 1520, at the instance of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, to write the history of Florence. By the year I 52 5 the Istorie Fiorentine was completed, so far as we have it, and presented to the Cardinal, who in the meantime had become Pope under the title Of Clement VII. Whatever benefits the choice or acceptance of a Medici as a patron may have brought Machiavelli in his lifetime it secured a publisher for his writings, because in 1531 Clement granted to Antonio Blado the privilege of printing the Istorie Fiorentine, II Principe, Discorsi, and a few other works. But by this time death, to which Machiavelli had Often referred as the enemy to the accomplishment of so many great objects, had stepped in and the golden pen was laid aside for ever. Thus the promise which the author had made to his patron of continuing the history of Florence was never fulfilled. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.