XIV. With regard to the peculiar defence which Bocalina makes for Machiavel, it is easy to see, at whom his malignant expressions point; which he might very well have omitted, because without alluding to any one in so elevated a form of life, he had very near at hand in the person of Cæsar Borgia[2], a man furnished with all the requisites for his purpose, and whom he did not run much hazard of announcing. I mean, that in order to excuse Machiavel from being the inventor of the maxims he published, and to point out some person under whom he had studied and learned them, he could have fixed on no one more proper than that prince, because Cæsar Borgia was without doubt, a man of most iniquitous and tyrannic politics, and capable of committing all sorts of wickedness, provided his doing it would contribute to advance his grandeur; for he was fiery, daring, and cruel, and was besides so furiously ambitious, that were it in his power, he was capable of burning the whole world, for the sake afterwards of domineering absolutely over the ashes of it. XV. Hermanus Coringius, a protestant author, says, that Machiavel was some time in the service of this prince. If this be true, it is easy to guess from whom he learned what he afterwards committed to writing; and I believe the Italians would not disdain to acknowledge, that their Florentine politician had been instructed by a Spanish master. XVI. But the truth is, that Machiavel had no occasion to seek for an example, either in him, or in any other of the princes of his own time; for as he was a man pretty well read in history, every age had furnished him with examples in plenty. They mistake little less, who suppose Machiavel learned his maxims from the politicians of his day; than those do, who believe the politics, posterior to Machiavel, were taken from his doctrines. XVII. But notwithstanding all that can be urged in opposition to it, this second opinion is much entertained and received by people of little reading and short reflection, in which group we may suppose to be comprehended the bulk of mankind. Not a few, when they converse upon this subject, add with a mysterious gravity, and as if they were extracting a profound apophthegm from the inmost recesses of their understandings, that although Machiavel was the master who introduced this doctrine, it has since his time been so much improved upon in courts, that if the master could now come back into the world, he would find it necessary to go to school again.