THE LIFE OF CASTRUCCIO CASTRACANI OF LUCCA WRITTEN BY NICOLO MACHIAVELLI And sent to his friends ZANOBI BUONDELMONTI And LUIGI ALAMANNI CASTRUCCIO CASTRACANI 1284-1328It appears, dearest Zanobi and Luigi, a wonderful thing to those who have considered the matter, that all men, or the larger number of them, who have performed great deeds in the world, and excelled all others in their day, have had their birth and beginning in baseness and obscurity; or have been aggrieved by Fortune in some outrageous way. They have either been exposed to the mercy of wild beasts, or they have had so mean a parentage that in shame they have given themselves out to be sons of Jove or of some other deity. It would be wearisome to relate who these persons may have been because they are well known to everybody,
