ABSTRACT
At the time when Machiavelli first took office, the Florentines’ main preoccupation was the recapture of Pisa, and one could say that every internal or external piece of business which passed through the Chancery bore the mark of that war. Since the city had rebelled in the presence and with the consent of Charles VIII, all efforts had been directed first at getting Pisa back from the King, who was the cause of its loss, and then, after a long history of illusions and disillusions, of temporizing and betrayals, they sought to retake it by military action. This would have been simple, had it not been for foreign greed and the Florentines’ tenacious friendship for France, which gained them the enmity of the Italian states in league against Charles VIII. They had been held firm to this friendship by ancient tradition, by commercial interests, and by Savonarola’s sermons. The latter had thereby brought upon himself the wrath of the power that wielded spiritual as well as temporal arms under the banner of the League. In consequence there had been a hard duel between the Florentine government and the court of Rome, which wished to make them pay for Pisa with the French alliance and the Friar’s life.
