Machiavelli's Lessons From Florence

Machiavelli: Florence has mostly failed to live up to the Roman standard, its progress constantly undermined by bad laws and self-interested factionalism. Machiavelli offers us a reason to think that the lessons of Rome would apply just as well to Renaissance Florence, he says. It is because all people have the same desires and the same traits that he who diligently examines past events easily foresees future ones.