Machiavelli: A Renaissance Life; The often-vilified Renaissance politico and author of The Prince comes to life as a diabolically clever, yet mild mannered and conscientious civil servant

Machiavelli: A Renaissance Life Paperback

by Joseph Markulin  (Author)

The often-vilified Renaissance politico and author of The Prince comes to life as a diabolically clever, yet mild mannered and conscientious civil servant. Author Joseph Markulin presents Machiavelli’s life as a true adventure story, replete with violence, treachery, heroism, betrayal, sex, bad popes, noble outlaws, deformed kings, menacing Turks, even more menacing Lutherans, unscrupulous astrologers, untrustworthy dentists—and, of course, forbidden love. While sharing the stage with Florence’s Medici family, the nefarious and perhaps incestuous Borgias, the artists Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, and the doomed prophet Savonarola, Machiavelli is imprisoned, tortured, and ultimately abandoned. Nevertheless, he remains the sworn enemy of tyranny and a tireless champion of freedom and the republican form of government. Out of the cesspool that was Florentine Renaissance politics, only one name is still uttered today—that of Niccolo Machiavelli. This mesmerizing, vividly told story will show you why his fame endures.Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Niccolò Machiavelli, best known as the author of the political tract The Prince, is often cited as the proponent of cynical, manipulative, and ruthless exercise of political power. Of course, in reality, both the man and his ideas are more nuanced. Markulin, a former professor specializing in Renaissance studies, has written a so-called nonfiction novel that makes a clumsy but often enjoyable effort to examine the man and his time. Markulin captures the cultural dynamics as well as the chaos, treachery, and violence that characterized political life in fifteenth-century Italy. He also offers interesting, if not necessarily accurate, portraits of members of the Medici and Borgia families and mixes in juicy tidbits of sex and moral chicanery. Machiavelli is painted as a rather heroic and even tragic figure, and Markulin probably has inflated both his power and importance in his own time. This is not serious history, but it is an enjoyable romp through a fascinating period in European history. –Jay Freeman

Review

“An enjoyable romp through a fascinating period in European history.”
—Booklist

About the Author

Joseph Markulin is a former professor of Italian and comparative literature with a specialization in medieval and Renaissance studies. After publishing on topics ranging from Dante to Fellini, Markulin joined the fast-moving, not to say Machiavellian, world of public relations in New York City. He currently lives in the Catskills in upstate New York, where he hosts a radio show and tends an organic farm.