An Unlikely Prince: The Life and Times of Machiavelli ( Da Capo Press ; 2010 ) 334 pages

The Life and Times of Niccolò Machiavelli ( 2 vol 1892 ), good older biography ; online Google edition vol 1 ; online Google edition vol 2

* Machiavelli and the Italian City on the BBC's In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg ; with Quentin Skinner, Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge ; Evelyn Welch, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London ; Lisa Jardine, Director of the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at Queen Mary, University of London

* Niccolò Machiavelli: First systematic analyses of: ( 1 ) how consent of a populace is negotiated between and among rulers rather than simply a naturalistic ( or theological ) given of the structure of society ; ( 2 ) precursor to the concept of ideology in articulating the epistemological structure of commands and law.

It was a novel meaning to the term ; representative democracy was not an idea mentioned by Machiavelli and did not exist in the classical republics.

What Machiavelli was to the Italians and Montesquieu to the French, Zachariae aspired to become to the Germans ; but he lacked their patriotic inspiration, and so failed to exercise any permanent influence on the constitutional law of his country.

In Chapter 18, for example, he uses a metaphor of a lion and a fox, examples of cunning and force ; according to, “ the Roman author from whom Machiavelli in all likelihood drew the simile of the lion and the fox ” was Cicero.

In addressing the question of whether it is better to be loved or feared, Machiavelli writes, “ The answer is that one would like to be both the one and the other ; but because it is difficult to combine them, it is far safer to be feared than loved if you cannot be both .” As Machiavelli asserts, commitments made in peace are not always kept in adversity ; however, commitments made in fear are kept out of fear.

This chapter is possibly the most well-known of the work, and it is important because of the reasoning behind Machiavelli ’ s famous idea that it is better to be feared than loved – his justification is purely pragmatic ; as he notes, “ Men worry less about doing an injury to one who makes himself loved than to one who makes himself feared .” Fear is simply a means to an end, and that end is security for the prince.

This chapter shows a low opinion of flatterers ; Machiavelli notes that “ Men are so happily absorbed in their own affairs and indulge in such self-deception that it is difficult for them not to fall victim to this plague ; and some efforts to protect oneself from flatterers involve the risk of becoming despised .” Flatterers were seen as a great danger to a prince, because their flattery could cause him to avoid wise counsel in favor of rash action, but avoiding all advice, flattery or otherwise, was equally bad ; a middle road had to be taken.

Machiavelli gives a negative example in Emperor Maximilian I ; Maximilian, who was secretive, never consulted others, but once he ordered his plans and met dissent, he immediately changed them.

In a well-known metaphor, Machiavelli writes that " it is better to be impetuous than cautious, because fortune is a woman ; and it is necessary, if one wants to hold her down, to beat her and strike her down.

# Niccolò Machiavelli – The Prince ; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy

The " Ancients " were the Socratic philosophers and their intellectual heirs ; the " Moderns " start with Niccolò Machiavelli.

This tradition was prominent in the intellectual life of 16th-century Italy, as well as seventeenth-and 18th-century Britain and America ; indeed the term " virtue " appears frequently in the work of Niccolò Machiavelli, David Hume, the republicans of the English Civil War period, the 18th-century English Whigs, and the prominent figures among the Scottish Enlightenment and the American Founding Fathers.

While Bodin's common ground with Machiavelli is not so large, and indeed Bodin opposed the Godless vision of the world in Machiavelli, they are often enough paired, for example by A. C. Crombie as philosophical historians with contemporary concerns ; Crombie also links Bodin with Francis Bacon, as rational and critical historians.

Agathocles was cited as from the lowest, most abject condition of life and as an example of “ those who by their crimes come to be princes ” in Chapter VIII of Niccolò Machiavelli ’ s treatise on politics, The Prince ( 1513 ).

Najemy shows how Machiavelli's friend Vettori argued against Machiavelli and cited a more traditional understanding of fortune.

It should be noted that classical writers such as Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes and Theodore Roosevelt, are often cited as " founding fathers " of realism by contemporary self-described realists.

King Ferdinand of Spain is cited by Machiavelli as an example of a monarch who gained esteem by showing his ability through great feats and who, in the name of religion, conquered many territories and kept his subjects occupied so that they had no chance to rebel.

By reputation, at least, Bodin was cited as an unbeliever, deist or atheist by Christian writers who associated him with perceived free-thinking and sceptical tradition of Machiavelli and Pietro Pomponazzi, Lucilio Vanini, Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza: Pierre-Daniel Huet, Nathaniel Falck, Claude-François Houtteville.

Furthermore, Karl Polanyi, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Niccolò Machiavelli, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno and Michel Foucault are cited as major sources within the Critical theory of International Relations.

Of the Marxist Humanist's reliance on the 1844 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts Althusser writes, " We do not publish our own drafts, that is, our own mistakes, but we do sometimes publish other people's " ( cited in Gregory Elliot's " introduction: In the Mirror of Machiavelli " an introduction for Althusser's " Machiavelli and us ", p. xi ).

Cited in Chapter VI of Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince ( Concerning New Principalities Which Are Acquired By One ’ s Own Arms And Ability ) Fra Girolamo Savonarola was seen by Machiavelli as an incompetent, ill-prepared, and ' unarmed prophet ', unlike ' Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus ' ( Machiavelli's The Prince )

Cicero also describes anacyclosis in his philosophical work De re publica, as well as Machiavelli in Book I, Chapter II in his Discourses on Livy.

Other utilitarian-type views include the claims that the end of action is survival and growth, as in evolutionary ethics ( the 19th-century English philosopher Herbert Spencer ); the experience of power, as in despotism ( the 16th-century Italian political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli and the 19th-century German Friedrich Nietzsche ); satisfaction and adjustment, as in pragmatism ( 20th-century American philosophers Ralph Barton Perry and John Dewey ); and freedom, as in existentialism ( the 20th-century French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre ).

* Niccolò Machiavelli ( 1469 – 1527 )

Niccolò Machiavelli cites Cesare's dependence on the good will of the Papacy, under the control of his father, to be the principal weakness of his rule.

Niccolò Machiavelli met the Duke on a diplomatic mission in his function as Secretary of the Florentine Chancellery.

* The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

The Education of a Christian Prince was published in 1516, three years after Niccolò Machiavelli ’ s The Prince.

In political and historical writing Niccolò Machiavelli and his friend Francesco Guicciardini initiated a new realistic style of writing.

A second individual of unusually acute insight was Niccolò Machiavelli, whose prescriptions for Florence's regeneration under strong leadership have often been seen as a legitimization of political expediency and even malpractice.

* Niccolò Machiavelli and other Florentines preferred the version spoken by ordinary people in their own times.

To improve the well-being of her subjects she studied architecture, agriculture, and industry, and followed the principles that Niccolò Machiavelli had set forth for rulers in his book The Prince.

He also had a scheme for diverting the flow of the Arno River, a project on which Niccolò Machiavelli also worked.

* Il Principe ( 1974 ) ( text by Niccolò Machiavelli ) for 2 mixed choruses, 8 winds, 3 horns, tuba, bass guitar, piano

* 1469 – Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian historian and author ( d. 1527 )

Believing that people were motivated by self-interest, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Prince in 1513 as advice for the city of Florence, Italy.

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (, 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527 ) was an Italian historian, diplomat, philosopher, humanist and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance.

Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy, the first son and third child of attorney, Bernardo di Niccolò Machiavelli, and his wife, Bartolomea di Stefano Nelli.

The Life of Niccolò Machiavelli ( 1963 ), a standard scholarly biography

( 2011 ) Niccolò Machiavelli: History, Power, and Virtue.

Niccolò Machiavelli ( 2005 ) online edition

* Martelli, Mario ( 2004 ), “ Tracce d ` una preistoria dell ` Arte della Guerra di Niccolò Machiavelli ”, Interpres, XXIII, pp. 256 – 8.

* Martelli, Mario ( 1974 ), “ L ´ altro Niccolò di Bernardo Machiavelli ”, Rinascimento, XIV, pp. 39 – 100.

* Machiavelli, Niccolò.