The passages quoted from his 'Apologia de' Cappucci,' relative to Machiavelli, Filippo Strozzi, and Francesco Guicciardini (_Arch.Stor_.

vol.i.
pp.xxxix.

xxxviii.), are very instructive; with such greedy self-seeking oligarchs, it was impossible for the Medicean Popes to establish any government but a tyranny in Florence.
Thus from these five authors, writing from different points of view, we gain a complete insight into the complicated politics of Florence, at a period when her vitality was still vigorous, but when she had lost all faculty for centralized or concerted action.

In sagacity, in the power of analysis with which they pierce below the surface, trace effects to causes, discern character, and regard the facts of history as the proper subject-matter of philosophical reflection, they have much in common.

He who has seen Rembrandt's painting of the dissecting-room might construct for himself another picture, in which the five grave faces of these patient observers should be bent above the dead and diseased body of their native city.