Clues concerning Machiavelli’s thinking as to his own immediate personal path lie in one of the Italian Renaissance’s most beautiful—and in some ways most deceiving—letters, which he wrote to his ...

What if Machiavelli was neither a teacher of evil, nor simply a man of his time, but rather a radical democrat who boldly broke with a centuries-old tradition of denigrating the masses? This is the ...

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) is probably the world’s best-known political scientist. His fame is such that his name functions as an adjective to denote cunning and unscrupulous behaviour devised to ...

At an event in Boston earlier this year, the renowned scholar Edward Muir identified the correspondence of Niccolò Machiavelli’s on December 10th, 1513, to Francesco Vettori as the most important ...

Of all the writers in the “realist” canon—from Thucydides and Hobbes to Morgenthau and Mearsheimer—it is Niccolo Machiavelli who retains the greatest capacity to shock. In 1513, banished from his ...

Your support goes further this holiday season. When you buy an annual membership or give a one-time contribution, we’ll give a membership to someone who can’t afford access. It’s a simple way for you ...

After surviving years in the snake pit of Renaissance politics, Machiavelli penned 'The Prince,' his candid exploration of the mechanisms of power and leadership. Santi di Tito’s portrait of ...