Liberty, then—not the rhetorical liberty of an impossible and misconceived utopia, but such concrete liberty as is, when they are fortunate, within the grasp of real men, with their real limitations—is the dominant ideal of Machiavelli, and his final norm of judgment. Tyranny is liberty’s opposite, and no man has been a clearer foe of tyranny. No man clearer, and few more eloquent. In the 14th century, the Florentine people, threatened by external danger and by internal dissension, decided to turn their government over to a foreigner, the Duke of Athens.
