When addressing Lorenzo de' Medici directly, Machiavelli places Medici on a mountainous pedestal, while placing himself in a valley. This use of descriptive landscapes is an example of the poetic writing found in The Prince, and similar uses can be found throughout. However, to begin the second chapter, Machiavelli outlines exactly what he will explain and maintains that plan through the use of rational argument. In the first fourteen chapters Machiavelli identifies and explains the different principalities and the various types of "princes" that have existed and disappeared in those principalities. Use these real-life examples to give the audience the sense that the ideal prince that will be explained in the remaining chapters has been developed from the failures of previous principles in