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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: motives, would have been ruined. The Emperor Maximilian was one of the
most interesting men of the age, and his character has been drawn by
many hands; but Machiavelli, who was an envoy at his court in 1507-8,
reveals the secret of his many failures when he describes him as a
secretive man, without force of character--ignoring the human agencies
necessary to carry his schemes into effect, and never insisting on the
fulfilment of his wishes.
The remaining years of Machiavelli's official career were filled with
events arising out of the League of Cambrai, made in 1508 between the
three great European powers already mentioned and the pope, with the
object of crushing the Venetian Republic. This result was attained in
The Prince |
