Johann ziegler machiavelli biography

A colorful, comprehensive, and authoritative account of Machiavelli's life and thought
This is a colorful, comprehensive, and authoritative introduction to the life and work of the Florentine statesman, writer, and political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527). Corrado Vivanti, who was one of the world's leading Machiavelli scholars, provides an unparalleled intellectual biography that demonstrates the close connections between Machiavelli's thought and his changing fortunes during the tumultuous Florentine republic and his subsequent exile. Vivanti's concise account covers not only Machiavelli's most famous works—
The Prince
,
The Discourses
The Florentine Histories
, and
The Art of War
—but also his letters, poetry, and comic dramas. While setting Machiavelli's life against a dramatic backdrop of war, crisis, and diplomatic intrigue, the book also paints a vivid human portrait of the man.

Together with the Divina Commedia and Pinocchio, Niccolò Machiavelli’s Il Principe is the best-known and most translated work in Italian literature, as well as being, to an even greater extent than the other two works, quintessentially reflective in the collective imagination of the culture from which it originates (which, it has to be said, is not always exactly positive!). While Dante’s poem and the immortal tale of the wooden boy have vast audiences made up of readers attracted, above all, by the literary value of the two texts, Il Principe has an audience comprising the most diverse categories of readers: philosophers and historians of ideas, political scientists and sociologists, but also anybody who, for whatever reason, is interested in the dynamics and inner workings of human behaviour. Il Principe had a knock on effect, generating interest in the rest of the production of this Florentine author: from his historical works and essays to his literary works, namely from Dell’arte della guerra and Discorsi s

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