It has been suggested that due to such things as this and his style of writing to his superiors generally, there was very likely some animosity to Machiavelli even before the return of the Medici.

While fear of God can be replaced by fear of the prince, if there is a strong enough prince, Machiavelli felt that having a religion is in any case especially essential to keeping a republic in order.

Machiavelli asserts that there are three types of intelligence:

Drawing on Niccolò Machiavelli in The Prince, and trying to understand why there had been no Communist revolution in Western Europe, whilst there had been in Russia, Gramsci conceptualised this hegemony as a centaur, consisting of two halves.

In fact there is little trace of Machiavelli in French writings before the massacre, and not very much after, until Gentillet's own book, but this concept was seized upon by many contemporaries, and played a crucial part in setting the long-lasting popular concept of Machiavellianism that so infuriates scholars of his actual thought.

Foucault tries to trace the ' government of things ' ( as he refers to it ) with its direct collaboration and correlation to modern society as it is today ; starting from Niccolo Machiavelli with The Prince in 1513, where Foucault noticed that there wasn't unanimous reception over the prince.

In fact there is little trace of Machiavelli in French writings before the massacre, not that politicians telegraph their intentions in writing, until Gentillet's own book, but this concept was seized upon by many contemporaries, and played a crucial part in setting the long-lasting popular concept of Machiavellianism.

Machiavelli attributes two episodes to Cesare Borgia that were at least partially executed by his father: the method by which the Romagna was pacified, which Machiavelli describes in chapter VII of The Prince, and the assassination of his captains on New Year's Eve of 1503 in Senigallia.

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

Despairing of the opportunity to remain directly involved in political matters, after a time Machiavelli began to participate in intellectual groups in Florence and wrote several plays that ( unlike his works on political theory ) were both popular and widely known in his lifetime.

Others have argued that Machiavelli is only a particularly interesting example of trends which were happening around him.

While Xenophon and Plato also described realistic politics, and were closer to Machiavelli than Aristotle was, they, like Aristotle, also saw Philosophy as something higher than politics.

He accused Machiavelli of being an atheist and accused politicians of his time by saying that his works were the " Koran of the courtiers ", that " he is of no reputation in the court of France which hath not Machiavel's writings at the fingers ends ".

While Bruni and Machiavelli used the term to describe the states of Northern Italy, which were not monarchies, the term res publica has a set of interrelated meanings in the original Latin.

His personal favorites were the writings of French President Charles de Gaulle, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli.

Forty-four years after his death, on 7 June 1871, his remains were brought to Florence, and with all the pride, pomp and circumstance of a great national mourning, found their final resting-place beside the monuments of Machiavelli and Alfieri, of Michelangelo and Galileo, in the church of Santa Croce, the pantheon of Italian glory he had celebrated in Dei sepolcri.

The types of political behavior which are discussed with apparent approval by Machiavelli in The Prince were perceived as shocking by contemporaries, and its immorality is still a subject of serious discussion.

On the other hand, notes that " even if we were forced to grant that Machiavelli was essentially a patriot or a scientist, we would not be forced to deny that he was a teacher of evil ".

Machiavelli discusses the recent history of the Church as if it were a princedom that was in competition to conquer Italy against other princes.

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.

Niccolò Machiavelli attempted to address Vegetius ' defects in his L ' arte della Guerra ( Florence, 1521 ), with heavy use of Polybius, Frontinus and Livy, but Justus Lipsius ' accusation that he confused the institutions of diverse periods of the Roman Empire and G. Stewechius ' opinion that the survival of Vegetius ' work led to the loss of his named sources were more typical of the late Renaissance.

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

Niccolò Machiavelli attempted to address Vegetius's defects in his L ' arte della Guerra ( Florence, 1521 ), with heavy use of Polybius, Frontinus and Livy, but Justus Lipsius ' accusation that he confused the institutions of diverse periods of the Roman Empire and G. Stewechius ' opinion that the survival of Vegetius ' work led to the loss of his named sources were more typical of the late Renaissance.

Venetian theologians were described as followers of Machiavelli and Bodin by Giovanni Amato.

In fifteenth-century Italy, the condottieri were masterful lords of war ; during the wars in Lombardy, Machiavelli observed:

The Swiss, with their head-down attack in huge columns with the long pike, refusal to take prisoners, and consistent record of victory, were greatly feared and admired — for instance, Machiavelli addresses their system of combat at length in The Prince.

Historian Mark Phillips states that all subsequent Florentine accounts of the tyrannical regime of Walter VI of Brienne — including those by Leonardo Bruni and Niccolò Machiavelli — were based upon the primary source of Villani's Cronica.

Montesquieu and Machiavelli were also of this opinion.

Both were innovative in their approach to history: " Machiavelli and Guicciardini are important transitional figures in the development of historical writing.

It was for Florentine public celebrations that Intermedii came into their own ; several were organised by Machiavelli when he was part of the government of the Republic of Florence in the early 16th century, and the returning Medici adopted a policy of keeping the aristocracy occupied by involving them in productions.

A critical period in the history of this work's influence is at the end of the Middle Ages, and beginning of modernity, when several authors such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, argued forcefully and largely successfully that the medieval Aristotelian tradition in practical thinking had become a great impediment to practical political thinking in their time.

In The Prince ( VI ), Machiavelli cites Hiero as an exceptionally virtuous man and a rare example of someone who rose to princehood from private station.

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.

Niccolò Machiavelli believed that Sparta lasted a long time because " she did not permit strangers to establish themselves in the republic " and remarked that the Roman Republic took the opposite course of Sparta spelling her doom. It is to be noted, however, that the population of Sparta was in irreversible decline from the time of its victory in the Peloponnesian Wars, falling from 9, 000 Spartiates in 640 to 1, 000 after the battle of Leucra in 371, due to the refusal of miscegenation, selective infanticide and the desertion of patrician scions to more attractive foreign parts.

The title identifies the work's subject as the first ten books of Livy's Ab urbe condita, which relate the expansion of Rome through the end of the Third Samnite War in 293 BCE, although Machiavelli discusses what can be learned from other parts of Roman history, as well.

Machiavelli says that the first book will discuss things that happened inside of Rome as the result of public counsel ( I 1. 6 ), the second, decisions made by the Roman people pertaining to the increase of its empire ( II Pr. 3 ), and the third, how the actions of particular men made Rome great ( III 1. 6 ).

In the revival of military thinking and tactics that was a part of the Renaissance, military theorists such as Niccolò Machiavelli in his Art of War advocated a revival of the Roman legion and Sword and shieldmen.

saw him as a major source of the republicanism that spread throughout England and North America in the 17th and 18th centuries and Leo, whose view of Machiavelli is quite different in many ways, agreed about Machiavelli's influence on republicanism and argued that even though Machiavelli was a teacher of evil he had a nobility of spirit that led him to advocate ignoble actions.

These authors criticized Machiavelli, but also followed him in many ways.

His psychological insights into the behaviour of kings are ahead of their time, reminiscent in some ways of his contemporary, Niccolò Machiavelli.

Having discussed the various types of principalities, Machiavelli turns to the ways a state can attack other territories or defend itself.

These authors criticized Machiavelli, but also followed him in many ways.

Machiavelli argued, for example, that violent divisions within political communities are unavoidable, but can also be a source of strength which law-makers and leaders should account for and even encourage in some ways ( Strauss 1987 ).