henry frowde oxford university press warehouse amen corner, ec

xx IL PRINCIPE.
Perpetuus of the Discorsi and The Prince, is the whole
of later history.
Michelet has said: Rapportons-nous-en sur ceci /_
quelqu'un qui fur bien plus Machiavdliste que Machiavel,
/t la rdpublique de Venise. Before his day, and long
after, down almost to the time when a price was set on
the heads of the Pretender and of Pontiac, Venice employed
assassins. And this was not the desperate resource
of politicians at bay, but the avowed practice
of decorous and religious magistrates. In I569 Soto
hazards an impersonal doubt whether the morality of
the thing was sound : Non omnibus saris probatur Venetorum
mos, qui cum complures a patria exules habeant
condemnatos, singulis facultatem faciunt, ut qui allure
eorum interfecerit, vita ac libertate donetur. But his
sovereign shortly after obtained assurance that murder by
royal command was unanimously approved by divines : A
los tales puede el Principe mandarlos matar, aunque esten
fuera de su distrito y reinos.-- Sin ser citado, secretamente
L
I
se le puede quitar la vita.--Esta es doctrina comun y cierta
y recevida de todos los theologos. When the King of
France, by despatching the Guises, had restored his
good name in Europe, a Venetian, Francesco da Molino,
hoped that the example would not be thrown away on
the Council of Ten : Permeti sua divina bont/_ che questo
esempio habbi giovato a farlo proceder come spero con
meno fretta e pih sodamente a cose tali e d'importanza.
Sarpi, their ablest writer, their official theologian, has a
string of maxims which seem to have been borrowed
straight from the Florentine predecessor: Proponendo
cosa in apparenza non honesta, scusarla come necessaria,
come praticata da altri, come propria al tempo, che tende
a buon fine, et conforme all' opinione de molti.--La vendetta
non giova se non per fugir lo sprezzo.--Ogn' huomo
ha opinione che il mendacio sia buono in ragion di