I really liked this. A nice point of comparison is Macaulay's essay on Machiavelli [1]: > The whole man seems to be an enigma, a grotesque assemblage of incong

I really liked this. A nice point of comparison is Macaulay's essay on Machiavelli [1]: > The whole man seems to be an enigma, a grotesque assemblage of incongruous qualities, selfishness and generosity, cruelty and benevolence, craft and simplicity, abject villany and romantic heroism. One sentence is such as a veteran diplomatist would scarcely write in cipher for the direction of his most confidential spy; the next seems to be extracted from a theme composed by an ardent schoolboy on the death of Leonidas. An act of dexterous perfidy, and an act of patriotic self-devotion, call forth the same kind and the same degree of respectful admiration. The moral sensibility of the writer seems at once to be morbidly obtuse and morbidly acute. Two characters altogether dissimilar are united in him. They are not merely joined, but interwoven. They are the warp and the woof of his mind; and their combination, like that of the variegated threads in shot silk, gives to the whole texture a glancing and ever-changing appearance.... > The political works of Machiavelli derive a peculiar interest from the mournful earnestness which he manifests whenever he touches on topics connected with the calamities of his native land. It is difficult to conceive any situation more painful than that of a great man, condemned to watch the lingering agony of an exhausted country, to tend it during the alternate fits of stupefaction and raving which precede its dissolution, and to see the symptoms of vitality disappear one by one, till nothing is left but coldness, darkness, and corruption. To this joyless and thankless duty was Machiavelli called. I'm not sure I agree with the writer here that Machiavelli would have been overjoyed to see Florence on the UNESCO World Heritage List. He cared about the free and mighty city-state of the Renaissance, not the beautiful buildings mostly now owned by foreigners. [1]: https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/macaulay-critical-and-historical-essays-vol-1#lf1227-01_head_006 https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/macaulay-critical-and-hist...