the richest regions are always enclosed, as Essex and Kent are with us, and Spain and Italy elsewhere. Where enclosed plots are smallest, they are cultivated best, as around Florence in Italy and Damascus in Syria, where they look more like gardens than fields.

I will not have a single barren acre in all my territories, even on the mountaintops. Where nature falls short, human skill shall make up the deficiency; lakes and rivers shall not be left unused. All public roads, bridges, embankments, water diversions, aqueducts, channels, public works, buildings, and so on shall be carefully maintained and kept in repair from a common fund;

there shall be no removal of inhabitants, consolidation of holdings, or conversion of woodland or arable land without the consent of supervisors appointed to determine what improvements each place needs, what is wrong, and how to remedy it, And what each region will produce, and what it will refuse; what land is best for woods, grain, livestock, gardens, orchards, fishponds, and so on. In every village there shall be a fair and considerate division between lords and tenants, rather than one domineering household greedily swallowing everything, as happens all too often among us.

To give tenants a stronger incentive to improve the land they hold—to cultivate it, plant trees, drain it, fence it, and so on—they shall have long leases, a fixed rent, and a fixed lease premium, freeing them from the intolerable demands of tyrannical landlords.

These supervisors shall also determine how much land in each manor is suitable for the lord’s own estate, how much for tenants’ holdings, and how it ought to be farmed: As the Magnetes are known for horses, the Minyans for oars; how it should be cultivated, tilled, and improved: here grain grows, there grapes thrive better; elsewhere trees bear fruit and grass grows green unbidden;

and what share is appropriate to each occupation. For private landholders are often ignorant, poor managers, oppressive, or covetous: they do not know how to improve their own property, or else care only for their own advantage and disregard the public good. Utopian equality is a form of government to wish for rather than put into practice. The Christianopolitan Republic, Campanella’s City of the Sun, and that New Atlantis are ingenious fictions, but mere chimeras; and Plato’s communal arrangements are in many respects impious, absurd, and ridiculous. They take away all splendour and magnificence.

I will have different orders and ranks of nobility, and these shall be hereditary. Meanwhile, younger brothers shall not be cast aside: they shall be adequately provided for by pensions, or trained in some honourable occupation so that they can support themselves. A specified amount of land shall belong to every barony: whoever buys the land shall buy the barony. Anyone who squanders his inheritance and ancestral estates through extravagance shall forfeit his honours.

While some dignities shall be hereditary, others shall be bestowed by election or grant, besides freely bestowed offices, pensions, and annuities: appointments like our bishoprics and prebends, the pashas’ palaces in Turkey, and the procurators’ houses and offices in Venice. Like the golden apple, these shall go to the worthiest and most deserving, in war and peace alike, rewarding merit and good service and setting goals for everyone to aim at—honour nourishes the arts—and encouraging others.

For I hate those severe, unnatural, harsh German, French, and Venetian decrees that exclude commoners from honours. However wise, rich, virtuous, courageous, and well qualified they may be, they must not become patricians but must remain in their own rank. This is to wage war on nature, hateful to God and humanity. I abhor it. My form of government shall be monarchical: Never is liberty more welcome Than under a just king, and so on. There shall be few laws, but they shall be strictly observed, plainly written, and in the mother tongue, so that everyone can understand them.

Every city shall have a particular trade or privilege that chiefly supports it. Parents shall teach their children—at least one in three—bringing them up and instructing them in the skills of their own trade.

In every town, the different trades shall be so carefully located that the rest of the inhabitants are spared danger or nuisance. Trades that use fire—smiths, forge workers, brewers, bakers, metalworkers, and the like—shall occupy a separate quarter. Dyers, tanners, dealers in hides, and others who use water shall have suitable places of their own. Trades offensive because of their smells—butchers’ slaughterhouses, candle makers, and leather dressers—shall be placed out of the way, in back lanes.

I approve of guilds and companies: merchants’ exchanges and colleges of druggists, physicians, musicians, and so on. But the prices charged by every trade shall be regulated, as our market officers regulate those of bakers and brewers. Grain itself shall not exceed a set price, however severe the shortage.

Goods exported or imported that are necessary, useful, and closely connected with human subsistence—grain, wood, coal, and other supplies we cannot do without—shall pay little or no customs duty, and no taxes. But goods for pleasure, enjoyment, or adornment—wine, spices, tobacco, silk, velvet, cloth of gold, lace, jewels, and so on—shall bear a heavier duty.

I will send out a number of ships every year to make new discoveries, and appoint judicious men to travel overland through all neighbouring kingdoms. They shall observe useful inventions, good laws, customs, changes, and anything else in other countries, in war or peace, that may serve the common good. Church discipline shall be in the hands of bishops, with a hierarchy like that of the other officials.

There shall be no church revenues appropriated to lay ownership, and no lay patrons or individual private patrons of church livings: patronage shall belong to collective societies, corporations, and the like. Rectors appointed to benefices shall be chosen from the universities, examined and approved like the learned officials of China. No parish shall contain more than a thousand hearers.

If it were possible, I would have priests who imitate Christ; charitable lawyers who love their neighbours as themselves; temperate, modest physicians; statesmen who despise worldly things; philosophers who know themselves; noblemen who live honestly; tradesmen who give up lying and cheating; and magistrates who abandon corruption. But this is impossible. I must take such people as I can get.

I will therefore allow a fixed number of lawyers, judges, advocates, physicians, surgeons, and so on. Wherever possible, everyone shall plead his own case, telling the judge the story he now tells his advocate, as at Fez in Africa, Bantam, Aleppo, and Ragusa: each person is required to plead his own case.

The advocates, surgeons, and physicians who are authorised to practise shall be maintained from the public treasury. No fees shall be given or accepted, on pain of dismissal; or, if fees are permitted, they shall be very small and payable only when the case is completely finished.

Anyone who brings a lawsuit shall lodge a deposit, which he shall forfeit if it is proved that he has sued his opponent wrongfully, rashly, or maliciously. Alternatively, before proceedings begin, the plaintiff shall have his complaint approved by a commission appointed for that purpose. If it is substantial, he shall be allowed to proceed as described; otherwise the commissioners shall settle it. All cases shall be pleaded with names suppressed—the parties’ names concealed—unless particular circumstances require otherwise.

Judges and other officers shall be suitably distributed throughout each province, its villages and cities, serving as public arbitrators to hear cases and settle every dispute. They shall not sit alone: at least three shall sit on the bench together to decide a case or pass sentence. They shall serve in rotation or by lot, and shall not remain permanently in the same office.