Machiavelli A Biography

A "captivating biography of Italian philosopher and playwright"*NiccolÒ Machiavelli, author of The Princewhose writings have outraged and inspired generations of readers. Few philosophers are more often referred to and more often misunderstood. Truly a product of the Renaissance period, Machiavelli was as much a revolutionary in the field of political philosophy as Leonardo or Michelangelo were in painting and sculpture. Machiavelli spent years studying events and people before writing his famous books, which were based on observations of human nature that were as perceptive as Shakespeare's. Descended from minor nobility, he grew up in a household that was run by a vacillating and incompetent father. He eventually became an important figure in the Florentine state but was defeated by the deposed Medici and Pope Julius II. He was tortured, but eventually freed by the restored Medici. Machiavelli had seen the best and the worst of human nature, and he understood how the world operatednot how it should operate, but how it actually did. He was appropriately cynical in his writing, given what he had personally experienced. He was an outstanding writer, and his work remains fascinating nearly 500 years later.

Miles J. Unger, a contributing writer to The New York Times and former managing editor of Art New England, is an art historian and the author of Magnifico, a biography of Lorenzo de’Medici. He lives in Massachusetts.