3. "a great and continuous malignity": Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, Dedicatory Letter, ed. Harvey Mansfield (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 4.

4. "for some time now": NM to Francesco Guicciardini, May 17, 1521, Machiavelli and His Friends: Their Personal Correspondence, ed. Atkinson and Sices, #270, p. 336 (also in NM, The Prince, ed. Adams, pp. 133-35.)

5. "I wish I could write": Francesco Vettori to Niccolò Machiavelli, 16 Jan 1515, in James Atkinson and David Sices, trans. and ed., Machiavelli and His Friends: Their Personal Correspondence (De Kalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996), #246, p. 31

5. At different times in their careers: On the charge against Leonardo for sodomy, see Bramly, Leonardo, pp. 117-19; see also Chapter 3, "Leonardo Achieves Fame." In Niccolo's case, "a masked man with two witnesses went to the house of the notary of the conservators and in their presence gave him a notification." Some biographers state that Machiavelli's legitimacy was questioned on the grounds that his grandfather was a bachelor who only legally recognized his son Bernardo on his deathbed, thus making Bernardo's son Niccolò illegitimate and ineligible for offices open only to full citizens. Others, however, think that the Niccolò was charged with a failure to pay his taxes, a necessary condition for office-holding in Florence. Cf. Ridolfi, Machiavelli, with Butters, Governors and Governed, and Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini.

For the charge against NM, see Ridolfi, Machiavelli, pp. 112-13.

5. "your adversaries are numerous": Letter of Biagio Buonaccorsi to Niccolò Machiavelli, 28 December 1509, in Atkinson & Sices, eds., Machiavelli and His Friends, #181,p. 193 (italicized words originally in code).

5. "I wrote you that idleness": Vettori to NM, January 16, 1515, Machiavelli and His Friends, # 246, p. 311.