necessity of warfare, conducted by the people and their rulers in person.  The military organization of a great kingdom is here developed in a separate Essay, and Machiavelli’s favorite scheme for nationalizing the militia of Italy is systematically expounded.  Giovio’s flippant objection, that the philosopher could not in practice maneuver a single company, is no real criticism on the merit of his theory.

By this time the Medici had determined to take Machiavelli into favor; and since he had expressed a wish to be set at least to rolling stones, they found for him a trivial piece of work.  The Franciscans at Carpi had to be requested to organize a separate Province of their Order in the Florentine dominion; and the conduct of this weighty matter was intrusted to the former secretary at the Courts of Maximilian and Louis.  Several other missions during the last years of his life devolved upon Machiavelli; but none of them were of much importance:  nor, when the popular government was instituted in 1527, had he so far regained the confidence of the Florentines as to resume his old office of war secretary.  This post, considering his recent alliance with the Medicean party, he could hardly have expected to receive; and therefore it is improbable that the news of Gianotti’s election at all contributed to cause his death.[1] Disappointment he may indeed have felt:  for his moral force had been squandered during fifteen years in the attempt to gain the favor of princes who were now once more regarded as the enemies of their country.  When the republic was at last restored, he found himself in neither camp.  The overtures which he had made to the Medici had been but coldly received; yet they were sufficiently notorious to bring upon him the suspicion of the patriots.  He had not sincerely acted up to the precept of Polonius:  ’This above all,—­to thine own self be true.’  His intellectual ability, untempered by sufficient political consistency or moral elevation, had placed him among the outcasts:—­

     che non furon ribelli,
  Ne fur fedeli a Dio, ma per se foro.

The great achievement of these years was the composition of the Istorie Fiorentine.  The commission for this work he received from Giulio de’ Medici through the Officiali dello Studio in 1520, with an annual allowance of 100 florins.  In 1527, the year of his death, he dedicated the finished History to Pope Clement VII.  This masterpiece of literary art, though it may be open to the charges of inaccuracy and superficiality,[2] marks an epoch in the development of modern historiography.  It must be remembered that it preceded the great work of Guicciardini by some years, and that before the date of its appearance the annalists of Italy had been content with records of events, personal impressions, and critiques of particular periods.  Machiavelli was the first to contemplate the life of a nation in its continuity, to trace the operation of political forces through