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Among the most original thinkers of the Renaissance is a brilliant and slightly tragic figure, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527). Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, his name would be synonymous with deviousness, cruelty, and willfully destructive rationality; no thinker was every so demonized or misunderstood than Machiavelli. Upon embarking on the research of such a controversial and infamous thinker, I was very much intrigued by all the literature published on Machiavelli. Further, once assessing the sum total of information I perused on him, my position is as Leeden stated, and “Nobody else has dealt with the political and moral requirements of leadership with such brutal clarity as Machiavelli (ix). ...
This period was marked by political instability, fear, invasion, intrigue, and high cultural achievement as the tiny states of Italy, including the Papal States, were pulled into the politics and wars of Europe by the immense gravity of two large states, Spain and France (Fieser, “Nicolo Machiavelli”).
His life began at the very start of this process: in 1469, when Ferdinand and Isabella married and through this marriage created a new, large kingdom of Spain composed of Castile and Aragon, Machiavelli was born to a wealthy Florentine lawyer (Fieser, Nicolo Machiavelli). ...
When Savonarola, fanatic about reform, was himself thrown from power and burned, a second Republic was set up under Soderini in 1498 (“Machiavelli, Niccolò”) . Machiavelli was the secretary of this new Republic, an important and distinguished position (Kocis 11) . ...
It seems that Machiavelli really had no political commitments or political stripe: he seems to have been on nobodys side politically. ... The Medici, however, never fully trusted him since he had been an important official in the Republic (Fieser, “Nicolo Machiavelli”). ... It was during his exile in San Casciano, when he was desperate to get back into government, that he wrote his principle works: the Discourse on Livy, The Prince, The History of Florence, and two plays (Fieser, Nicolo Machiavelli) .
Approximate Word count = 1428
Approximate Pages = 5.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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