speaking in diplomatic intercourse.[208] A man like Macchiavelli appears in his ‘Legazioni’ in an almost pathetic light. Furnished with scanty instructions, shabbily equipped, and treated as an agent of inferior rank, he never loses his gift of free and wide observation or his pleasure in picturesque description. From that time Italy was and remained the country of political ‘Istruzioni’ and ‘Relazioni.’ There was doubtless plenty of diplomatic ability in other states, but Italy alone at so early a period has preserved documentary evidence of it in considerable quantity. The long despatch on the last period of the life of Ferrante of Naples (January 17, 1494), written by the hand of Pontano and addressed to the Cabinet of Alexander VI., gives us the highest opinion of this class of political writing, although it is only quoted incidentally and as one of many written. And how many other despatches, as important and as vigorously written, in the diplomatic intercourse of this and later times, still remain unknown or unedited![209] A special division of this work will treat of the study of man individually and nationally, which among the Italians went hand in hand with the study of the outward conditions of human life. CHAPTER IX. WAR AS A WORK OF ART. It must here be briefly indicated by what steps the art of war assumed the character of a product of reflection.[210] Throughout the countries of the West the education of the individual soldier in the middle ages was perfect within the limits of the then prevalent system of defence and attack: nor was there any want of ingenious inventors in the arts of besieging and of fortification. But the development both of strategy and of tactics was hindered by the character and duration of military service, and by the ambition of the nobles, who disputed questions of precedence in the face of the enemy, and through simple want of discipline caused the loss of great battles like Crécy and Maupertuis. Italy, on the contrary, was the first country to adopt the system of mercenary troops, which demanded a wholly different organisation; and the early introduction of fire-arms did its part in making war a democratic pursuit, not only because the strongest castles were unable to withstand a bombardment, but because the skill of the engineer, of the gun-founder, and of the artillerist--men belonging to another class than the nobility--was now of the first importance in a campaign. It was felt, with regret, that the value of the individual, which had been the soul of the small and admirably-organised bands of mercenaries, would suffer from these novel means of destruction, which did their work at a distance; and there were Condottieri who opposed to the utmost the introduction at least of the musket, which had been lately invented in Germany.[211] We read that Paolo Vitelli,[212] while recognising and himself adopting the cannon, put out the eyes and cut off the hands of