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Subject Area: Political Theory

LETTER XXVIII. - Niccolo Machiavelli, The Historical, Political, and Diplomatic Writings, vol. 3 (Diplomatic Missions 1498-1505) [1498]

Edition used:

The Historical, Political, and Diplomatic Writings of Niccolo Machiavelli, tr. from the Italian, by Christian E. Detmold (Boston, J. R. Osgood and company, 1882). Vol. 3.

Part of: The Historical, Political, and Diplomatic Writings, 4 vols.

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LETTER XXVIII.

Magnificent Signori: —

Having received several letters from the Magistracy of the Ten, in reply to several of my despatches addressed to your Lordships, and having in turn informed the said Magistracy of all that relates to the interests of our republic, I deem it superfluous to repeat the same things to your most excellent Lordships. The only thing that induces me to write now is to present my homage to your Lordships, and to recommend myself most humbly to your good graces. I am furthermore moved to write by the affection I bear to Messer Giulio Scurcigliati of Naples; not for any particular service that he has rendered to me personally, but because of his warm, fruitful, constant, and affectionate labors in favor of the liberties of our republic. And therefore I beg most earnestly to recommend this gentleman to your Lordships; and humbly to ask that, if you desire to have him continue your friend and defender here, and if your Lordships do not wish to be charged with ingratitude by the whole court here at seeing all Messer Giulio’s services unrecognized, you will be pleased to aid him with your sovereign hand, and to favor him by looking into the litigation in which he is involved with the heirs of Pierantonio Bandini. For I assure your Lordships that when he received the news, some three days ago, that a decision in the matter had not been rendered because of the inhibition, etc., etc., he became so furious at the wrong which he conceived had been done him, that, if I had not been present, he would have rushed to the court to cry out and complain of the injury, etc.

He complains of several things: firstly, that your Lordships had remitted his case to the ordinary tribunal, whilst it ought to have been summarily adjudged by your Lordships yourselves; secondly, that this ordinary tribunal had so protracted the matter that it afforded time to his adversaries to obtain an order of inhibition; thirdly, that the woman has been relieved from banishment; and fourthly, that the person who is charged with watching his interests at Florence has deprived him of all hope of being able to obtain his rights by these proceedings; and finally, that in the inhibition his adversaries had called him “merchant and usurer.” He claims that he asks no more than his own capital, and is willing to forego all accrued interest.

So far as I am concerned, Magnificent Signori, I know nothing of Scurcigliati’s case, but I do know that so long as your relations with his Majesty are so uncertain, and as it were in the air, few persons can be of service to you, whilst it is in every one’s power to injure you; and therefore I have thought it not amiss, but rather necessary on the whole, to manage this man and temporize with him. And if you do not, he will, at the receipt of the first letter from Florence, rush like lightning through the court, and the evil he will say of you will be more readily believed than all the good he has said before. For he is a man of some influence and credit here, — a fluent talker, most audacious, importunate, and terrible, and of uncontrollable passions, — and therefore apt to carry through whatever he undertakes. I have enlarged upon this matter solely from my devotion to my country; and my belief that it was for her good has made me write as I have done. Your most excellent Lordships will, I trust, hold me excused, and will act in the whole matter with your wonted goodness and wisdom.

I recommend myself most humbly to your Lordships.

Servitor

Niccolo Machiavelli.

Tours, 24 November, 1500.