Then follows a discussion of the relative merits of the three chief forms of government--the Governo dell' Uno, the Governo degli Ottimati, and the Governo del Popolo (p.
129).

Guicciardini has already criticised the first and the third.[1] He now expresses a strong opinion that the second is the worst which could be applied to the actual conditions of the Florentine Republic (p.

130).
His panegyric of the Venetian constitution (pp.

139-41) illustrates his plan for combining the advantages of the three species and obviating their respective evils.

In fact he declares for that Utopia of the sixteenth century--the Governo Misto--a political invention which fascinated the imagination of Italian statesmen much in the same way as the theory of perpetual motion attracted scientific minds in the last century.[2] What follows is an elaborate scheme for applying the principles of the Governo Misto to the existing state of things in Florence.