Niccolò Machiavelli
1469–1527 7 entries
Biography
Niccolò Machiavelli was a Florentine diplomat, political thinker, historian and playwright, often called the founder of modern political science. Born in Florence in 1469, he became secretary of the Second Chancery of the Florentine Republic in 1498 and for fourteen years served it on diplomatic missions to the king of France, the emperor, the pope and Cesare Borgia, whose methods he observed closely. In 1512 the Medici returned to power, the republic fell and Machiavelli lost his post; the following year he was imprisoned and tortured on suspicion of conspiracy.
Released, he withdrew to his farm at Sant’Andrea in Percussina, near Florence, where in 1513 he wrote The Prince, a short treatise on how rulers gain and keep power, which separated politics from morality and gave the word “Machiavellian” to many languages. There he also wrote the Discourses on Livy, a defence of republican government, and the comedy The Mandrake. He later wrote the Florentine Histories for the Medici and died in Florence in 1527. The Prince was published only after his death, in 1532.
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