Key Arguments

• He singles out 'your illustrious House' as the only current candidate capable of the role, favored by God and the Church.
• He argues that the opportunity before them is greater than that of past founders and that their cause is at least as just and as easy, with God as much their friend.
• He urges them to keep before their eyes the lives and actions of past great men as models.

Source Quotes

We see too how ready and eager she is to follow any standard were there only some one to raise it. But at present we see no one except in your illustrious House (pre-eminent by its virtues and good fortune, and favoured by God and by the Church whose headship it now holds), who could undertake the part of a deliverer. But for you this will not be too hard a task, if you keep before your eyes the lives and actions of those whom I have named above.

But for you this will not be too hard a task, if you keep before your eyes the lives and actions of those whom I have named above. For although these men were singular and extraordinary, after all they were but men, not one of whom had so great an opportunity as now presents itself to you. For their undertakings were not more just than this, nor more easy, nor was God more their friend than yours.

For although these men were singular and extraordinary, after all they were but men, not one of whom had so great an opportunity as now presents itself to you. For their undertakings were not more just than this, nor more easy, nor was God more their friend than yours. The justice of the cause is conspicuous; for that war is just which is necessary, and those arms are sacred from which we derive our only hope.

Key Concepts

• we see no one except in your illustrious House (pre-eminent by its virtues and good fortune, and favoured by God and by the Church whose headship it now holds), who could undertake the part of a deliverer
• after all they were but men, not one of whom had so great an opportunity as now presents itself to you
• For their undertakings were not more just than this, nor more easy, nor was God more their friend than yours

Context

Chapter 26; direct exhortation to the Medici as the only plausible liberators, leveraging their temporal and ecclesiastical standing.