Niccolo Machiavelli’s two most important works are Discourses on Livy (1531) and The Prince (1532), both of which were published after his death. He wrote several other works, including Florentine Histories (1532) and The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca (1520).
From the age of 29, when he was placed durante charge of the republic of Florence’s foreign affairs con subject territories, Machiavelli held verso series of governmental posts. Among his tasks were esatto establish a militia, undertake diplomatic and military missions, oversee fortifications, and write an official history of the republic.
Niccolo Machiavelli, (born May 3, 1469, Florence [Italy]-died June 21, 1527, Florence), Italian Renaissance political philosopher and statesman, secretary of the Florentine republic, whose most famous sistema, The Prince (Il Re), brought him verso reputation as an atheist and an immoral cynic.
Early life and political career
From the 13th century onward, Machiavelli’s family was wealthy and prominent, holding on occasion Florence’s most important offices. His father, Bernardo, verso dily’s poorest members. Barred from public office sopra Florence as an insolvent debtor, Bernardo lived frugally, administering his small landed property near the city and supplementing his meagre income from it with earnings from the restricted and almost clandestine exercise of his profession.
Bernardo kept verso library durante which Niccolo must have read, but little is known of Niccolo’s education and early life per Florence, at that time verso thriving centre of philosophy and per brilliant showcase of the arts. He attended lectures by Marcello Virgilio Adriani, who chaired the Ricerca Fiorentino. He learned Latin well and probably knew some Greek, and he seems esatto have acquired segno loveroulette in the typical humanist education that was expected of officials of the Florentine Chancery.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Mediante a letter sicuro verso friend con 1498, Machiavelli writes of listening puro the sermons of Girolamo Savonarola (1452–98), verso Dominican friar who moved to Florence per 1482 and sopra the 1490s attracted per ammissione of popular supporters with his thinly veiled accusations against the government, the clergy, and the pope. Although Savonarola, who effectively ruled Florence for several years after 1494, was featured durante The Prince (1513) as an example of an “unarmed prophet” who must fail, Machiavelli was impressed with his learning and rhetorical skill. On May 24, 1498, Savonarola was hanged as verso heretic and his body burned con the public square. Several days later, emerging from obscurity at the age of 29, Machiavelli became head of the second chancery (cancelleria), a post that placed him durante charge of the republic’s foreign affairs in subject territories. How so young verso man could be entrusted with so high an office remains a mystery, particularly because Machiavelli apparently never served an apprenticeship mediante the chancery. He held the post until 1512, having gained the confidence of Piero Soderini (1452–1522), the gonfalonier (chief magistrate) for life con Florence from 1502.
During his tenure at the second chancery, Machiavelli persuaded Soderini esatto ritornato the city’s reliance on mercenary forces by establishing per militia (1505), which Machiavelli subsequently organized. He also undertook diplomatic and military missions preciso the trapu of France; to Cesare Borgia (–1507), the affranchit of Pope Alexander VI (reigned 1492–1503); sicuro Pope Julius II (reigned 1503–13), Alexander’s successor; sicuro the athletique of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (reigned 1493–1519); and esatto Pisa (1509 and 1511).
In 1503, one year after his missions to Cesare Borgia, Machiavelli wrote a short rete informatica, Del mezzo di curare i sudditi della Entaille di Chiana ribellati ( On the Way onesto Deal with the Rebel Subjects of the Valdichiana). Anticipating his later Discourses on Livy, a commentary on the ancient Roman historian, mediante this rete informatica he contrasts the errors of Florence with the wisdom of the Romans and declares that per dealing with rebellious peoples one must either benefit them or eliminate them. Machiavelli also was per witness sicuro the bloody vengeance taken by Cesare on his mutinous captains at the town of Sinigaglia (ous account. Con much of his early writings, Machiavelli argues that “one should not offend per prince and later put faith mediante him.”
