Volume 8, Number 11 · June 15, 1967
Not a Machiavellian
By Frances A. Yates
Machiavelli
by Giuseppe Prezzolini, translated by Gioconda Savini
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 372 pp., $8.50
Born in 1469 of an aristocratic but impoverished Florentine family, Niccolo Machiavelli saw in his youth the brilliance of Florence under the benevolent despotism of the Medici. He seems to have been unaffected by the Neoplatonic revival, for his formation was that of a purely Latin humanist, and the two passions of his life were for politics and history, inextricably mingled. When the Medici were expelled, the change to a republican government fostered such interests, for the intense political discussions which went on in liberated Florence drew constantly on examples from ancient history. Machiavelli gained his early political experience as a secretary to the Florentine republic; on the return of the Medici he was imprisoned and tortured, though soon released. He retired to his small estate where, in great poverty, he mused on what had happened, asking why the Romans had succeeded in building a great republic and empire whereas Florence and all Italy were going down into ruin. The result of these questionings was The Prince and the Discourses on Livy.
Review, 2568 words
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