henry frowde oxford university press warehouse amen corner, ec

xii IL PRINCIPE.
The onus #robandi rests with those who support the
theory of Triantafillis. There exists hardly any external
evidence by which to decide the question. Most of the
earlier writers copy the statement of Paolo Giovio--
'constat eum (Machiavelli), sicut ipse nobis fatebatur, a
Marcello Virgflio, cuius et notarius et assecla publici
muneris fuit, Graecae atque Latinae linguae flores
accepisse, quos scriptis suis insereret.' It is clear that
this offers hardly anything towards a solution of the
difficulty, for even if the statement is true, we cannot tell
whether the purpurei panni thus supplied were translations
or not. Paolo Giovio was usually understood to mean
that Machiavelli could not read Greek ; thus, e.g. Varillas
[L'Histoire secrete de la Maison de M_dicis, 1685: page
247] writes, ' Quant _ la langue Gr_que, il ne la savoit pas
meme lire,' and his account is based upon Giovio's. In
default of external evidence, the question can only be
decided by an examination of Machiavelli's writings themselves.
The internal evidence is, on the whole, in favour of the
assumption that Machiavelli derived the knowledge of
Greek authors, which he undoubtedly possessed, from
Latin translations of their works. No Greek quotation
occurs in the whole of Machiavelli's writings: Latin
quotations are frequent. It is just possible that Machiavelli
may have learned the rudiments of Greek, which
would account for the use of some Greek letters in the
Arte della Guerra. This was the case with Guicciardini,
_._ at any rate; for he writes--'oltre alle lettere latine,
' "" ,¢,imparai qualche cosa di greco, che poi in spazio di qualche
\._¢" anno per avere altro esercizio dimenticai.' That the
custom of reading Greek authors in Latin versions was
very general at the time, is abundantly proved. It may