Maquiavelo

The ideas of Machiavelli (1469-1527) contributed decisively to configure a radically new way of analyzing the real functioning of social life and the mechanisms of power. The great Florentine thinker (observes Quentin Skinner) cultivated "a particular humanistic tradition of classical republicanism"; the creative and original aspects of his thinking are born precisely from his controversial reactions to that body of inherited beliefs to which he continued to adhere to throughout his life. This monograph places Machiavelli's biography and works in the cultural context of Renaissance Italy and the problems created by the reordering of the European state map. The result of this fruitful interrelation was a new vision of political reality articulated around a central idea: that the key to power lies in the ability of rulers to recognize the force of circumstances, accept the dictates of necessity, and harmonize one's behavior with the sign of the times.