What does Machiavelli's work tell us about the political environment of late 15c and early 16c Italy?

Machiavelli's work indicates the basic instability of
government and of rulers in Italy during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. At the
time, Venice was the most powerful of the Italian city states, based on its maritime
empire; Rome was controlled by the Pope who held both political and religious authority,
and Florence primarily from the Medici who lost power and then were returned. It was
difficult to determine who one should support, or how long an authority would last.
Indicative of the problems was the work of Cesare Borgia, the son of Rodrigo Borgia who
became Pope Alexander VI. Cesare had been made a Cardinal in the church by his father,
but built an army and attempted to build his own empire in the vicinity of Rome using
funds furnished by his father.

Machiavelli had been a
political official in Florence while the Medici were in political exile; however they
returned to power and he was imprisoned and tortured. His reasons for writing
The Prince have been largely debated. There is some argument that
he intended to flatter the ruling Medici; but the avowed purpose of the book is to
advise a ruler how to stay in power by whatever means, thereby providing the stability
that had long been absent in Italian/Florentine government. Interestingly, the last
chapter exhorts the Prince to liberate Italy from the
"barbarians:"

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This opportunity, therefore, ought not to be
allowed to pass for letting Italy at last see her liberator appear. Nor can one express
the love with which he would be received in all those provinces which have suffered so
much from these foreign scourings, with what thirst for revenge, with what stubborn
faith, with what devotion, with what tears. What door would be closed to him? Who would
refuse obedience to him? What envy would hinder him? What Italian would refuse him
homage? To all of us this barbarous dominion stinks. Let, therefore, your illustrious
house take up this charge with that courage and hope with which all just enterprises are
undertaken, so that under its standard our native country may be ennobled, and under its
auspices may be verified that saying of Petrarch:

Virtue
against fury will advance the fight,
And it in the conflict soon shall put to
flight
For the old Roman valor is not dead
Nor in the Italian's
breast extinguished.