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even when it might prevent a terrorist atrocity. The climax of this scandal comes with the author’s discussion of Cesare Borgia, a man who rose to power and kept it with the use of extraordinary treachery and cruelty. The temp- tation for the translator is to play to the reputation of the book, underlining Machiavelli’s extreme views and making sure the text doesn’t ‘disappoint’, even when its tone and subtlety are not, perhaps, exactly what readers were expecting. At the end of the discussion of Borgia, having recounted how he eventually lost power when his father, Pope Alex- ander, suddenly and unexpectedly died and a pope hostile to Borgia was elected, Machiavelli writes: ‘Raccolte io adunque tutte le azioni del duca, non saprei riprenderlo.’ Literally, we have: ‘Having gathered then all the actions of the duke, I would not know how to reproach him.’ Bull gives: ‘So having summed up all that the duke did, I cannot possibly censure him.’ Here the word ‘censure’ has a strong moral connotation, and the statement is made stronger still by the introduction of ‘can’t possibly’, which seems a heavy interpretation of the standard Italian for- mula ‘I wouldn’t know how to’. In Bull’s version it seems that Machiavelli is making a point of telling us that he has no moral objections to anything Cesare Borgia did, this in line with the author’s reputation for cynicism. Marriot more cautiously gives: ‘When all the actions of the duke are recalled, I do not know how to blame him’, and both Italian translations take the same line. The fact