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Subject Area: Political Theory

LETTER XVII. - Niccolo Machiavelli, The Historical, Political, and Diplomatic Writings, vol. 4 (Diplomatic Missions 1506-1527) [1506]

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. 4.

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

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LETTER XVII.

Magnificent Signori, etc.:

We wrote to your Lordships yesterday, at the fourth hour of night, and reported all that had transpired up to that moment. This morning, at the first hour and a half of the day, a messenger arrived with letters from Tarlatino, informing us that the ambassadors, who had returned from Florence, had referred the question respecting the troops to us three commissaries; and that the troops had deputed him, together with four of their number, to come here and settle that matter with us. Judging that these soldiers wanted to press the settlement of their case before it should become known what resolution had been taken in council, so as to obtain more favorable conditions, we have detained Tarlatino’s messenger here, on the ground that, before replying to him, we wished to know what had been decided in council yesterday. Whilst thus temporizing, Andrea de Pucerello, brother of Filippo, arrives, at this sixteenth hour, to inform us on the part of Filippo that the ambassadors are hastening here to bring us the resolution of the acceptance of the agreement, and that everything was settled. We have deemed it proper to send this information to your Lordships by a mounted messenger, so that you may know, from hand to hand, how matters stand. We shall endeavor to do the best we possibly can in the matter between your Lordships and Tarlatino and the troops, and will inform you of all with the utmost despatch. All that we write now is founded upon the information sent us by the said Andrea. We shall, however, report again so soon as we learn the particulars from the ambassadors, and will immediately after their arrival despatch a mounted messenger to your Lordships.

ALAMANNUS SALVIATUS,} Commissarii Generales.
NICOLAUS CAPPONEUS,