He learns that a man of the _mezzo ceto_, a man who passes his life on horseback, has harvested on his land so many sacks of corn, which have produced him so much money.

The _mercante di campagna_ comes, and confirms the intelligence, and then pays the rent agreed upon to the uttermost baioccho.

Sometimes he even pays down a year or two in advance.

What prince could forgive such aggravated insolence?
It is the more atrocious, since the farmer is polite, well-mannered, and much better educated than the prince; he can give his daughters much larger fortunes, and could buy the entire principality for his own son, if by chance the prince were obliged to sell it.

The cultivation of estates by means of these people is, in the eyes of the Roman princes, an attack upon the rights of property.
Their passion for incessant work is a disturbance of the delightful Roman tranquillity.