Machiavelli (Niccolò), a native of Florence, was a man with much insight and an excellent pen. He had a sprinkling of Latin but he started off in the service of a learned man who, having shown him many fine passages of the ancient authors, gave him the task of inserting them in his books [(A)]. He wrote a play in the style of the ancient Greeks [(B)], which proved so great a success that Leo X used it to entertain the city of Rome. He was secretary and afterwards historiographer to the republic of Florence. The Medicis procured this employment for him with a good salary to compensate him for having been tortured upon the rack. He suffered in this way when he was suspected of complicity in a conspiracy on the part of the Soderini against the House of the Medicis.