Chapter 8

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

The custom of ancient republics to plant colonies, and the
advantage of it--Increased population tends to make countries more
healthy--Origin of Florence--Aggrandizement of Florence--Origin of
the name of Florence--Destruction of Florence by Totila--The
Florentines take Fiesole--The first division in Florence, and the
cause of it--Buondelmonti--Buondelmonti slain--Guelphs and
Ghibellines in Florence--Guelphic families--Ghibelline families--
The two factions come to terms.

Among the great and wonderful institutions of the republics and
principalities of antiquity that have now gone into disuse, was that
by means of which towns and cities were from time to time established;
and there is nothing more worthy the attention of a great prince, or
of a well-regulated republic, or that confers so many advantages upon
a province, as the settlement of new places, where men are drawn
together for mutual accommodation and defense. This may easily be
done, by sending people to reside in recently acquired or uninhabited
countries. Besides causing the establishment of new cities, these
removals render a conquered country more secure, and keep the
inhabitants of a province properly distributed. Thus, deriving the
greatest attainable comfort, the inhabitants increase rapidly, are
more prompt to attack others, and defend themselves with greater
assurance. This custom, by the unwise practice of princes and
republics, having gone into desuetude, the ruin and weakness of
territories has followed; for this ordination is that by which alone
empires are made secure, and countries become populated. Safety is the
result of it; because the colony which a prince establishes in a newly
acquired country, is like a fortress and a guard, to keep the
inhabitants in fidelity and obedience. Neither can a province be
wholly occupied and preserve a proper distribution of its inhabitants
without this regulation; for all districts are not equally healthy,
and hence some will abound to overflowing, while others are void; and
if there be no method of withdrawing them from places in which they
increase too rapidly, and planting them where they are too few the
country would soon be wasted; for one part would become a desert, and
the other a dense and wretched population. And, as nature cannot
repair this disorder, it is necessary that industry should effect it,
for unhealthy localities become wholesome when a numerous population
is brought into them. With cultivation the earth becomes fruitful, and
the air is purified with fires--remedies which nature cannot provide.
The city of Venice proves the correctness of these remarks. Being
placed in a marshy and unwholesome situation, it became healthy only
by