Machiavelli, Niccol� 1469-1527
Italian statesman, writer and political philosopher

Machiavelli was born in Florence, but nothing much is known of his early life. He was among those who rapidly rose to power in 1498, despite his lack of political experience, when Savonarola's regime in Florence was overthrown. He was appointed head of the Second Chancery and Secretary to the Council of Ten (the main foreign relations committee in the republic). He served on a variety of diplomatic missions over the next 14 years and met many important political leaders including Louis XII of France, Cesare Borgia, Pope Julius II and Emperor Maximilian I. His reports and correspondence demonstrate a shrewd appraisal of people and events and enabled him to try out ideas he was later to develop in his political works.

In 1512, when the Medici family, in exile since 1494, returned to run the city and the republic was dissolved, Machiavelli was dismissed from his post (for reasons that are unclear) and the following year was arrested on a charge of conspiracy against the new regime. He was tortured, and although soon released and pardoned, was obliged to withdraw from public life and devote himself to writing. To console himself, as he explained in a famous letter to his friend Francesco Vettori, he studied ancient history, pondered the lessons to be learned from his experiences in government service, and drafted 'a little book' on the subject. That was his masterpiece, The Prince, which was written in 1513 and circulated in manuscript form before being published in 1532. It was intended to be a handbook for rulers, advising them what to do and what to say to achieve political success, and its main theme is that rulers must always be prepared to do evil if they judge that good will come of it.

Machiavelli's admirers have praised him as a political realist; his (rather more numerous) critics have denounced him as a dangerous cynic and amoralist. He dedicated the book to the Medici, hoping to secure their sympathetic attention, but he was never offered any further political offices and he spent his last 15 years as a man of letters. He died among family and friends, and was buried in Santa Croce, Florence.

Bibliography: In addition to The Prince, he wrote a series of Discourses on Livy (a full-scale analysis of republican government, completed in about 1518), a treatise on The Art of War (published 1521), Mandragola, a comic play about a seduction (completed in about 1518), and several minor literary and historical works. See also Q Skinner, Machiavelli (1981); P Bondanella and M Musa, The Portable Machiavelli (1979); M Fleisher, Machiavelli and the Nature of Political Thought (1973); R Ridolfi, The Life of Machiavelli (1963).