Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) was a Florentine civil servant and diplomat who served the republic from 1498 until the return of the Medici in 1512, when he was dismissed, briefly imprisoned and tortured, and retired to his farm outside the city. There he wrote The Prince (1513, printed 1532), the Discourses on Livy, the comedy Mandragola, The Art of War and the Florentine Histories. He died a few weeks after the Medici were expelled again.