| Machiavelli's Life and Works |
| Niccol Machiavelli lived in Florence during a very turbulent period of history. Born in 1469 of an old Tuscan family, he received the ordinary humanistic education of his times, without, however, acquiring the usual habits of a learned man. The wide knowledge he later achieved was the result of private reading, meditation and, above all, practical experiences with life and men. |
| When Machiavelli made his first appearance in public life in 1498, Florence, unlike most of the Italian states already under the influence of foreign sovereignties, was still independent and ruled by a republican government. Machiavelli applied himself to safeguarding and strengthening the independence of his city with the ardor of an ancient republican. That same year he was first appointed Chief Secretary of the Republic and, later, head of the Second Chancery, which combined the functions of a war office and, in part, of a ministry for home affairs. |
| During the following years, while serving in this capacity, he was entrusted with frequent missions abroad, such as investigation of the conditions of foreign states and of the political orientation of their princes. He was repeatedly in France at the court of Louis XII, ally of Florence (1500, 1504, 1510, 1511), and in Romagna (1502, 1503), where Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, ruled with the title of Duke Valentinois. There, in 1503, Machiavelli witnessed the slaughter of the hostile tyrants of Romagna by the shrewd and ruthless duke. Machiavelli was in Rome during the election of Pope Julius II (1503) and three years later met the pope, who was marching against Bologna. Finally in 1507, he went to the court of Emperor Maximilian II, who seemed to be preparing for an invasion of Italy. The few political pamphlets he wrote after those embassies, although they lack the perspicuity and maturity of later works, represent a first attempt to formulate the principles of a new political theory. The mission to Valentinois |
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