Statesmen like Guicciardini, who, by the way, has written a fine paragraph upon the very word in question,[1] did not think it unworthy of their honor to traffic in affairs of state for private profit.

Machiavelli not only recommended breaches of political faith, but sacrificed his principles to his pecuniary interests with the Medici.

It would be curious to inquire how far the obtuse sensibility of the Italians on this point was due to their freedom from vanity.[2] No nation is perhaps less influenced by mere opinion, less inclined to value men by their adventitious advantages: the Italian has the courage and the independence of his personality.

It is, however, more important to take notice that Chivalry never took a firm root in Italy; and honor, as distinguished from vanity, _amour propre_, and credit, draws its life from that ideal of the knightly character which Chivalry established.
The true knight was equally sensitive upon the point of honor, in all that concerned the maintenance of an unsullied self, whether he found himself in a king's court or a robber's den.

Chivalry, as epitomized in the celebrated oath imposed by Arthur on his peers of the Round Table, was a northern, a Teutonic, institution.