First Sentence

"Florence, wrote Machiavelli in 1519 or 1520 in his Discursus on the reform of the Florentine government, has never been a 'repubblica...che abbi avute le debite qualita sue' - an observation which recapitulates the statement made a few years earlier in his Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio that 'per dugento anni che si ha di vera memoria', Florence had never possessed a 'stato, per il quale la possa veramente essere chiamata republica'."