CHAPTER XLIII

THAT MEN BORN IN A PROVINCE OBSERVE FOR ALL TIME ALMOST THE SAME NATURES

Prudent men usually say (and not by chance or without merit) that whoever wants to see what is to be, considers what has been; for all the things of the world in every time have had the very resemblance as those of ancient times. This arises because they are done by men who have been, and will always have, the same passions, and of necessity they must result in the same effects. It is true that men in their actions are more virtuous in this province than in another, according to the nature of the education by which those people have formed their way of living. It also facilitates the knowledge of future events from the past, to observe a nation hold their same customs for a long time, being either continuously avaricious, or continuously fraudulent, or have any other similar vice or virtu. And whoever reads of past events of our City of Florence, and takes in consideration also those which have occurred in recent times, will find the French and German people full of avarice, haughtiness, ferocity, and infidelity, because all of these result in things at different times; which have greatly harmed our City. And as to bad faith, everyone knows how many times money was given to King Charles VIII on his promise to restore to them the fortresses of Pisa, but he never restored them: in which the King showed the bad faith and great avarice of his. But let us come to more recent events. Everyone may have heard of what ensued in the war which the Florentine people carried on against the Visconti, Dukes of Milan, and how Florence, deprived of other expedients, decided to call the Emperor into Italy, who, with his reputation and strength, would assault Lombardy. The Emperor promised to come with a large force, and to undertake the war against the Visconti, and to defend Florence against their power if the Florentines would give him a hundred thousand ducats when starting, and a hundred thousand more when they would enter Italy. The Florentines consented to these terms, and paid them the first moneys, and later the second, but when he arrived at Verona, he turned back without doing anything, alleging as a reason for leaving, that they had not observed the conventions that existed between them.

So that, if Florence had not been constrained by necessity or carried away by passion, and having studied and known the ancient customs of the barbarians, she would not have been deceived by them on this and other occasions; for they [the Gauls] have always been the same and conducted themselves on every occasion and towards everyone, as is seen they did in ancient times to the Tuscans; who, having been hard pressed by the Romans, having been routed and put to flight by them many many times, and seeing that they could not by their own forces be able to resist the assaults [of the Romans], came together with the Gauls who lived in Italy on this side of the Alps, to give them a sum of money, for which they should be obliged to join their armies with theirs [Tuscans], and go against the Romans. Whence it happened that the Gauls, having taken the money, did not then want to take up arms for them, saying that they had received it, not for making war against the enemy, but for abstaining from plundering the Tuscan country. And thus the Tuscan people were, because of the avarice and bad faith of the Gauls, suddenly deprived of their money and the aid they had hoped to obtain from them. So that it is seen from the example of the ancient Tuscans and from that of the Florentines, that the Gauls [and French] have employed the same means; and from this, it can be easily conjectured how much Princes can have confidence in them.