Quotation from: The Prince

Written by: Niccolo Machiavelli


The remaining years of Machiavelli's official career were filled with
events arising out of the League of Cambrai, made in 1508 between the
three great European powers already mentioned and the pope, with the
object of crushing the Venetian Republic. This result was attained in
the battle of Vaila, when Venice lost in one day all that she had won in
eight hundred years. Florence had a difficult part to play during these
events, complicated as they were by the feud which broke out between
the pope and the French, because friendship with France had dictated the
entire policy of the Republic. When, in 1511, Julius II finally formed
the Holy League against France, and with the assistance of the Swiss
drove the French out of Italy, Florence lay at the mercy of the Pope,
and had to submit to his terms, one of which was that the Medici should
be restored. The return of the Medici to Florence on 1st September
1512, and the consequent fall of the Republic, was the signal for the
dismissal of Machiavelli and his friends, and thus put an end to his
public career, for, as we have seen, he died without regaining office.

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