“Our country is like a piece of cloth which is large enough to provide cloaks of reasonable size for all, but it is so badly divided, that while one man has a cloak which he can wrap round himself three times and leave two yards trailing on the ground, another has not sufficient material for a cape.”

— VILLARI, Life of Savonarola, Book III., Chap. VI.

(Quoted from Messer Francesco de’Guicciardini, 1497)