(personally into rumors of a lawsuit being brought against Machiavelli but instead had other people look around) according to Serristori:

What I promised to tell you above is this fine business that you will hear:
I was planning to tell it to you more or less in brief,
but I have changed my mind and shall tell you the entire story,
in order that,
following my example,
you may better confirm how very foolish it is
        to deal with asinine men
        and to talk with them,
        because anyone who is asinine is,
        after all,
an ass in every way and turns everyone who stoops to look at him,
        much less anything else,
        into asses.

Around three months ago,
Piero del Bene and I were talking,
        seated on his bench,
        that is, outside,
        where people sit.
Antonio Segni came walking by there:
we invited him to sit down,
        I moved over,
        he accepted,
we put him in the middle.

So Piero del Bene takes out a coin struck by the new minters,
        for you must know that the Fuggers have the mint
        and no longer Antonio Segni,
and he praises it.

Then, after Antonio has talked to both of us
and we have asked him several things concerning the money profession,
he makes a digression,
        saying that the popes,
        because of either too much saintliness
        or greater concerns,
        do not think of the welfare
        or the hardship
        of the people.
And I said,
"Maybe they do not want to think about their welfare,
but they do think about the opposite,"

and he said that it was not the pope's doing,

and I spoke in the third person, saying,
        "Others
        are of the
        opposite opinion,"
so he incites me to listen to the reasons by which
I would see that such people were in error.

I answered that I would listen willingly.
He made his argument quite properly,
and I praised him
and gave him my reply.

He answered,
I again replied to his answer.

He re-answers, I reply again,
still speaking in the third person,
        that is,
"They say, &c."

Then he said, smiling,
"The fact is that,
if the reflection of most people is good,
those are not things for lawbooks and judgments."

I replied that lawbooks and judgments are a trade like the others,
and that I was not speaking according to them
but according to what I gathered from men
        who make a calling of such things
        and who know about them,
and that I also had spoken on my part,
and that I did not think that lawbooks took away men's brains.
I said these things, too, with a smile,

and he, also smiling, said,
"As for what I said about talking on my part,
        &c.,
the primary thing is whether you can get yourself to understand it."

On the subject of lawbooks and brains,
I said that I have known a dozen
        judges, lawyers, and attorneys
        who were fools.
I said that I did not think that they were all like that,
        because I had known just as many
        merchants who had become brokers
and yet that had not happened to all merchants.

Then he said,
        but softly,
        "So you see,
brokers know more than your kind do."

        I said,
        "Antonio,
let us not become enemies over this:
you know a lot about your trade,
        which you make your calling.
Whatever I know about mine
        or I feel I know about it
does not take away from you
        nor does it add.
It suffices
        that what I tell you
        I am not basing on my trade."
He answered me
that he knew more about his trade
        and mine
than I do.

To cut the discussion short and not to seem to be leaving in anger,
I said that I was speaking to him neither with his trade nor with mine
        but with my brains,
and that everyone considers he has brains to spare,
and that I felt that I had been born with as much of them as he had.
So I acted as if I was thinking about something else,
        although I remained seated next to him.

Staying that way for a while and looking toward the bridge,
so that my back was turned toward him,
I felt someone give me a punch in the cheek.
        I turned around,
        amazed,
and saw that it had been Antonio,
because he was still standing,
and he wanted to show me that at least,
since I had gotten together with an asinine man,
I should give his asinine words their due with a slap,
because he would have been satisfied and not want to consider:
        what will people say?
Whereupon I got off the wall to send him to Kingdom Come.

So I reached for a bread knife of mine,
        a fairly big one.
        Seeing that,
he ran into a shop next to Beni's,
        where a beltmaker works,
        and he picked up a marble
        pressing-block
to defend himself.

I knocked it out of his hand,
        and finally,
        after he had run around
        into a corner of the shop,
I took him by the chest to kill him,
and just as I unleashed the blow and the blade was already at his coat,
I was grabbed from behind on the arms by someone and pulled back,
and someone else grabbed my knife hand,
so that there was no way that I could make use of that.

        And so,
fearing that Antonio might reach for his weapons,
        which I felt that he had
(and at first he acted as if he wanted to draw it and could not
because of the speed and force I used),
or he might grab some other blade from the shop,
I pulled Antonio along by the chest,
        so that,
        hanging on to him,
        I pressed him against the wall,
and he flung his hands down on the knife out of fear,
and they say he cut himself a little
because the knife was not very sharp.

Then, after we had remained hanging on tight to each other for a while,
seeing that I was held too strongly by those two,
I decided to make an effort to get loose,
so that, between pushing and being pulled,
held so tightly a prisoner as I was,
I got out of the shop with my knife in my hand and he remained there.

And so, out of fear that the court may hold me to more than I would want,
I am not leaving sanctuary
        until certain little matters are cleared up
        and I get back to Florence,
        where I want to stay for a while;
if it were not for this business, I would have arrived two months ago.

I send my regards to you, to Messer Niccolò, to the prior,
        and to our cronies,
        although the term is faulty
because with men of honor words change their significance
or their manner of signifying.