note: Giuliano refers to Giuliano de Medici. While in prison, Machiavelli wrote a pair of sonnets to him. Ridolfi writes: “He has heard the kindness, urbanity, and magnanimity of Giuliano greatly praised—a man of fine manners who seeks the company of learned men and poets. Machiavelli wishes to try what writing to him might do. But he is a man for writing sonnets and not tearful supplications: he has always defended himself with laughter, always hidden behind laughter. He writes:”

I have, Giuliano, a pair of shackles on my legs
with six hoists of the rope on my shoulders:
my other miseries I do not want to talk about,
as this is the way poets are to be treated!

These broken walls generate lice so swollen they seem like butterflies;
nor was there ever such a stench in Roncesvalles
or among those groves in Sardinia,
as in this fine dwelling of mine;
with a noise that sounds just as if all the earth
Jove was striking lightning , and all Mount Etna too.

One man is being chained and the other shackled
with a clatter of keyholes, keys, and latches;
another shouts that he is pulled too high off the ground!

What disturbed me most
was that close to dawn while sleeping
I heard chanting: “Pro eis ora”

Now let them go, I pray,
if only your mercy may turn towards me,
and surpass the fame of your father and your grandfather

…
In this night, begging the Muses
that with their sweet zither and sweet poems
they, to console me , should visit
Your Magnificence, and make my excuses,
one appeared who upset me,
saying: “Who dares to call me?”

I told her my name, and she to torment me
hit me in the face and shut my mouth for me,
saying: “You are not Niccolò but Dazzo
because you have your legs and heels bound together
and stay there chained up like a lunatic.”

I wanted to give her my reasons:
and she responded and said: “Go to the devil
with that comedy of yours in rags.”

Bear her witness,
Magnificent Giuliano, for high God,
that I am not Dazzo but myself.

notes: Roncesvalles refers to the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778 and the “groves in Sardinia” probably refers to when the Pisans and Genoese drove the Moors from Sardinia in 1017.

Dazzo refers to Andrea Dazzi, a pupil of the first chancellor, who was “desperately trying to keep afloat in the then rather stagnant waters of Florentine letters.”

notes: Michelangelo’s David was completed and installed outside the Palazzo Vecchio in 1504. Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes which had stood there previously (see page 3) was moved into the courtyard of the Palazzo.

notes: In September of 1512, the Medici took control of Florence once again. Ridolfi writes: “Elected in the piazza according to the old abusive custom, the resultant committee, chosen from among the most violent partisans of the Medici, undid piece by piece the system of magistrates and all the popular liberties” of the Soderini republic. “The military organization created by Machiavelli was dissolved. Soderini was banished and the Great Council abolished.” In November, Machiavelli was “dismissed, deprived and totally removed” from his place in government by order of the Signoria. His friend Biagio Buonaccorsi was similarly cut off.

In February of 1513, Medici authorities caught a pair of would-be assassins, who had written down a list of people they knew or thought might be enemies of the Medici, in the hopes of enlisting their aid. Machiavelli’s name was among them. Although the conspiracy was more fantasy than reality, with “no firm basis or following” it was more than enough for the Eight to have everyone on the list (who were no friends of the Medici in the first place) arrested and brought in for questioning…

Machiavelli’s interrogators used the strappado on him, which was a common torture of the time. The victim is raised off the ground, then dropped. Just before they hit the ground, the rope is suddenly pulled tight, yanking the arms suddenly backward with the full force of gravity. Dislocated shoulders and worse were common.

notes: the last page of Chapter 7. To see what will become of Machiavelli when the hostile (to him) Medici regime takes power, read Chapter 8, coming soon…

notes: With Florence’s last defenders completely routed at Prato, there was nothing stopping Giuliano de’ Medici and his troops from marching directly into Florence. The day after the battle, towns from the Floretine distratta (Pistoia, Pescia) began pledging their allegiance to the Papal League. Florentine ambassadors had little choice but to agree to remove Soderini and reinstate the Medici. The call “Palle, palle” referred to the balls that made up the Medici family crest. Their likely origin is from the family’s early origins as apothecaries or doctors.

notes: Again, the description is from Machiavelli’s letter to an unidentified noblewoman, dated a little after September 16, 1512. It is unknown what their relationship was: possibly romantic, it would not have been out of character for him. He had at least two mistresses in Florence (not simultaneously) that we know of, and if his letters are to be believed he was not always chaste while away on his diplomatic missions. That said, an innocent correspondence is equally plausible.

notes: Although Niccolò’s letter is dated September, the events he’s describing (and will concern us over the next couple of weeks) occur on August 29, 1512. Luca Landucci describes the prelude thus:

27th August. All this time the country round was being deserted in every direction, but the fear of the peasants was not so great when they saw how the citizens were making preparations, and the poor creatures took heart, for in reality it seemed to intelligent people as if there were no such need for fear; on the contrary, it was rather for the enemy to fear, because if they came down into these plains, they would fare badly. This was the opinion of every intelligent person. We had levied so many battalions of militia, and all the men-at-arms were eager to encounter the enemy, for the sake of gain, and had a mind to slay everyone. Our troops now numbered 17 thousand men, counting the militia and the men-at-arms [mercenaries] together.

That day the enemy came down and took Campi without resistance, and having entered it, they slew a band of men and stole everything they could carry, burning flax and taking away many prisoners…the reason they gained the place so quickly was that some of the inhabitants had opened the gates in order to get away, but did not succeed.”

It seems that Machiavelli and Florence’s other military leaders did not share Landucci’s sunny optimism about the strength of their troops, as they did not contest Campi, deciding instead to fortify Prato…

notes: The coat of arms hanging behind Machiavelli in the last panel are those of Julius II. They can still be seen today on the helmets of the Swiss Guard.

notes: The coat of arms on the doorway in the fourth panel is Machiavelli’s. The Machiavelli arms are an azure cross on a silver field, with four nails at the corners of the cross. The name Machiavelli comes from the Italian male, meaning evil or bad, and chiavella meaning nail or spike: a reference to the nails used in the crucifixion.

notes: exterior, Machiavelli’s villa in Sant’Andrea in Percussina, a small village in the hills about five miles south of Florence. He calls it not without affection, the Albergaccio, or “run-down hotel”.