Michael Angelo, after the siege, worked at the Medici tombs for Pope Clement, as a makepeace offering for the fortification of Samminiato; while Machiavelli entreats to be put _to roll a stone by these Signori Medici_, if only he may so escape from poverty and dullness.

Michael Angelo, we must remember, owed a debt of gratitude as an artist to the Medici for his education in the gardens of Lorenzo.
Moreover, the quatrain which he wrote for his statue of the Night justifies us in regarding that chapel as the cenotaph designed by him for murdered Liberty.

Machiavelli owed nothing to the Medici, who had disgraced and tortured him, and whom he had opposed in all his public action during fifteen years.

Yet what was the gift with which he came before them as a suppliant, crawling to the footstool of their throne?
A treatise _De Principatibus_; in other words, the celebrated _Principe_; which, misread it as Machiavelli's apologists may choose to do, or explain it as the rational historian is bound to do, yet carries venom in its pages.

Remembering the circumstances under which it was composed, we are in a condition to estimate the proud humility and prostrate pride of the dedication.