Why Machiavelli Still Matters

[groovedaddy]

FIVE hundred years ago, on Dec. 10, 1513, Niccolò Machiavelli sent a letter to his friend Francesco Vettori, describing his day spent haggling with local farmers and setting bird traps for his evening meal. A typical day for the atypical letter writer, who had changed from his mud-splattered clothes to the robes he once wore as a high official in the Florentine republic.

Toward the end of the letter Machiavelli mentions for the first time a “little work” he was writing on politics. This little work was, of course, “The Prince.”

One of the remarkable things about “The Prince” is not just what Machiavelli wrote, but that he was able to write at all. Just 10 months earlier, he endured the “strappado”: Hands tied behind his back, he was strung to a prison ceiling and repeatedly plunged to the floor.

Having at the time just been given the task of overseeing the foreign policy and defense of his native city, he was thrown out of his office when the Medici family returned to power. The new rulers suspected him of plotting against them and wanted to hear what he had to say. Machiavelli prided himself on not uttering a word.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/opinion/why-machiavelli-matters.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131210

[cilla4progress]

1. Wow - bookmarking for later

Read The Prince in college but didn't know Machiavelli's personal history.

Thanks.

[uriel1972]

2. I tend to believe "The Prince" was

A very clever satire of the rulers around him, who were not very nice people. A monumental F.U. gift to the family who had him tortured, rather than a pathetic attempt to ingratiate himself to them.

However being very dead there is no way to ask him now. It's just that it doesn't jibe with the rest of his work and he was known for a fierce dry humour.