Lehal Library

defensive in a world increasingly interested in values that had little to do with the gospel story. With great conviction, Savonarola preached the virtues of poverty, advocated the burning of any book or work of art that was impure and prophesied doom for the sinful Florentines in the form of a foreign invasion. In 1494 his prophesy came true. To get any grasp of Machiavelli’s diplomatic career and the range of reference he draws on in The Prince, one must have some sense of the complicated political geography of Italy in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and of the profound change that occurred in the 1490s, a change that would determine Italy’s fate for the next 350 years. For most of the fifteenth century there had been five major players in the peninsula: the Kingdom of Naples, the Papal States, Florence, Venice and Milan. Extending from just south of Rome to the southernmost tip of Calabria, the Kingdom of Naples was by far the largest. Wedged in the centre, with only precarious access to the sea, Florence was the smallest and weakest. All five powers were in fierce competition for whatever territory they could take. Having lost much of their over- seas empire to the Turks, the Venetians were eager to expand inside the northern Italian plain (Ferrara, Verona, Brescia) and down the Adriatic coast (Forlì Rimini). Con- scious of the size and power of a now unified France to the north, Milan hoped for gains to the south and west (Genoa) as a ­counter-­weight. Florence simply tried to get