Page 76 - All About History 48 - 2017 UK

HO

VILL OR IN?

Niccolò

Machiavelli

Considered a master of manipulation, was

Machiavelli a conniving political exile or a

misunderstood, disillusioned satirist?

Written by Philippa Grafton

Defining
ailed as the father of modern politics, Niccolò an education fit for an up-and-coming Florentine moment
Machiavelli has long been synonymous with diplomat. A centre of philosophical thinking,
Meeting the
everything bad about the political sphere. Florence provided Machiavelli with an exceptional king of France
His name, turned adjective as ‘Machiavellian’, humanist education. But this hub of culture was In July 1500, Machiavelli made the first of four
Hconjures up images of a cunning, sly and in a perpetual state of tumult. Florence had served trips to visit King Louis XII of France. These
manipulative figure, hell-bent on achieving their own as the origin of the Italian Renaissance less than a meetings helped to shape his writings in The
Prince –inparticularthosefoundinChapter
goals regardless of the means of getting there. But century before, and with the rise of the Medicis in Three,whichcoverstheacquisitionofnew
was the man behind the legend really as cruel as his the early 1400s, the city prospered and grew. Yet as territories and undermining existing ruling
legacy makes out? Florence thrived under Cosimo de’ Medici, the state families, and is considered one of the
mostruthlessinthebook.
Interestingly, Machiavelli’s reputation varies from faced constant strife with its neighbouring districts, July 1500
country to country. Tarred as a schemer, he has gone while on the horizon, foreign invasion looked
down in English-speaking history as the first of the imminent. Enduring peace was a distant dream. By
slimy, slippery politicians – yet in his home nation 1494, the Medici had been expelled from Florence,
of Italy, any notion of this historical bias is shed and and it was in this harsh, unstable environment that
the man is seen for what he really was: an innovator Machiavelli thrived.
whose views were far ahead of his time – by 500 In 1498, the intellectual attended sermons and
years, in fact. To this day, Machiavelli’s philosophical speeches by Girolamo Savonarola, a preacher whose
insights into the world of politics have shaped views went against the grain. Savonarola preached
modern ruling, and his observations are just as against the corruption of the pope, among other
relevant as they were in the 15th century. topics, and was hanged later that year, accused of
Born in 1469, little is known of Machiavelli’s being a heretic. Merely days later, Machiavelli found
childhood except that he grew up on his father’s himself in charge of Florence’s foreign affairs as the
estate on the outskirts of Florence, where he received head of the second chancery. How exactly this young
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