ABSTRACT
Born in 1469, Niccolò Machiavelli was a child of the Italian Renaissance as it flourished in Florence, but the influence that his writings exerted far transcended his time and place. He was a boy when the Pazzi conspiracy attempted to rid Florence of Medicean rule but succeeded in assassinating only Giuliano de’Medici, leaving his brother Lorenzo alive. Patron of great artists and poets, Lorenzo the Magnificent dominated the city’s political life until his death in 1492. His son, Piero inherited power in Florence, but when King Charles VIII of France invaded Italy in 1494 to lay claim to Naples, resistance to Piero’s rule grew to such an extent that he eventually fled the city. As a result of this French invasion, Florence became a republic. At first, the new Florentine republic was under the sway of Friar Girolamo Savonarola, but after his execution as a heretic in 1498, the republic lost its theological fervor. At this point, Machiavelli’s life in service to the republic began. He served as Florence’s secretary of the Second Chancery and of the Ten of War and represented the republic on diplomatic missions to France and to the Emperor, for example. When in 1512, the Medici returned to rule his native city, Machiavelli’s life changed dramatically. No longer was his native city a republic and no more was he to be its civil servant. To compound his troubles, because he was suspected of conspiring against the restored Medici, he was arrested and tortured. After his release, he returned to his farm in Sant’Andrea in Percussina, just outside of Florence.
