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Subject Area: Political Theory

LETTER XLV. - 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 XLV.

Magnificent Signori: —

I wrote the enclosed to your Lordships yesterday and repeated what I had communicated in my two letters of the day before, and dated at Sinigaglia, and which I sent by express, hoping that they have come safely and in time to your hands. I am sure that, if your Lordships consider the place in which I am, and the confusion existing here, you will excuse the delay if my letters are behind time. For the peasants conceal themselves; no soldier is willing to absent himself, not wishing to forego his chances of plunder; and my own domestics are unwilling to separate themselves from me for fear of being robbed. All these things cause such difficulties that since my first two despatches, which I sent through the influence of friends and by the promise of large rewards, deeming the news of great importance, I cannot find any one willing to go. And thus it comes that the letter which I wrote yesterday evening is still in my hands, and I know not what day I may be able to send it. But I have not much news to communicate to-day. His Excellency the Duke is still here in Conrinaldo; he attended to-day to paying his infantry, which is about three miles from here, and organizing his artillery, which he has directed to move towards Agobbio by way of Fossombrone, and from there it is to go towards Castello or Perugia, as may seem best to him.

I had a long conversation to-day with one of the Duke’s first officers, and he tells me much the same as what the Duke had told me of his good disposition towards your Lordships. And in conversing with him as to the course which his Excellency intended to pursue, he said that having caused Vitellozzo and Oliverotto to be put to death as tyrants, assassins, and traitors, the Duke intended to carry Signor Paolo and the Duca di Gravina to Rome, confidently hoping that by this time the Cardinal Orsino and Signor Julio were in the hands of the Pope; and that he would then commence legal proceedings against them, and have them condemned by process of law. He told me furthermore that his Excellency intended to free all the states of the Church from factions and tyrants, and restore them to the Pope, keeping for himself only Romagna; and that he expected thereby to place the new Pope under obligations, who would no longer be the slave of the Orsini or the Colonna, as all his predecessors hitherto had been. And this same gentleman assured me anew that the Duke had never had any other thought but to tranquillize Romagna and Tuscany; and that he believed he had now accomplished it by the capture and death of those who had been the chief cause of all the troubles; and that he regarded the rest but as a spark of fire that could be quenched by a single drop of water. And, finally, he told me that your Lordships could now settle their own matters by sending an ambassador to the Duke, with some proposition that would be alike honorable and advantageous for both sides; and who should also give his Excellency every assurance of friendship on your part, leaving aside all formalities and temporizing.

I have deemed it proper to communicate this conversation just as it occurred, and your Lordships will draw your own conclusions from it.

I recommend myself to your Lordships, quæ bene valeant.

Niccolo Machiavelli.

Conrinaldo, 2 January, 1503.