The choice of advisers is very important for a prince: Advisers are able or not, depending on the prince's wisdom. One can assess a prince's intelligence by looking at the men with whom he surrounds himself. if they are capable and loyal, one can consider the prince prudent, be cause he was able to discern their ability and managed to keep them loyal. But when these men are lacking in quality, one can consider the prince as deficient, because it is in choosing his advisers that he can make his first mistake. Anyone who knew Antonio da Venafro, the minister of Pandolfo Petrucci, Prince of Siena, considered Pandolfo a most capable man for having chosen da Venafro. There are three kinds of intelligence: One kind can understand on its own, the second can understand through others, and the third can understand neither on its own nor through others. The first kind is ex cellent, the second good enough, the third useless. Hence, if Pandolfo was not in the first category, he was at least in the second, because even if a prince does not possess great intelligence, if he can judge the good or bad that a man says or does, then he can distinguish between his ad viser's good and bad deeds, and praise the good and punish the bad The adviser cannot hope to deceive him, and so behaves well. There is a dependable method by which a prince can know his ad- viser When the prince sees that the adviser is more intent on further ing his own interest than that of the prince, and that his actions aim to