MACHIAVELLI.

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to the laws of Florence , for the sake of enjoying thehonours which the republic had to bestow. The Ma-chiavelli belonged to that portion of the Guelph partywhich abandoned their native town in 1260, after thedefeat of Monteaperti. Being afterwards re-estab-lished in their country, they enjoyed thirteen times therank of gonfaloniere of justice, an office correspondingto the better known one of doge, except that it was anannual magistrature ; and fifty-three different membersof the family were elected priors, another of the highestoffices of government.

Niccolo Machiavelli was born in Florence on the 3d 1469.of May, 1469j his father was jurisconsult and treasurerof the march, and by aid of these offices, maintained insome degree the lustre of his family, which was ob-scured by the poverty into which it had fallen. Hismother Bartolomea, daughter of Stefano Nelli, wasequally well descended. Her family derived itself fromthe ancient counts of Borgonuovo of Fucecchio, whoflourished in the tenth century, and her ancestors hadbeen elected to the highest offices in the Florentine state.

She had been previously married to Niccolo Benizzi,and was distinguished for her cultivated understandingand talent for poetry. .

Nothing is known of the childhood and education ofMachiavelli . Paul Jovius wishes to prove that hescarcely understood Latin , but this opinion finds nocredit: Paul Jovius is a writer, whose celebrity isfounded on his unblushing falsehoods and baseless ca-lumnies *: he was sold to the Medici, and attackedwithout scruple, and with a total disregard for truth,those persons who were inimical to them. At the age 1494 .of five and twenty, Machiavelli was placed as secretary j£tat.under Marcello di Virgilio de’ Adriani, or, as he is com- 25.monly called, Marcellus Virgil, whose pupil he had for-merly been. Marcellus Virgil had been at one time

* Baldelli.

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