'A
wonderfully assured and utterly riveting biography that captures not
only the much-maligned Machiavelli, but also the spirit of his time and
place. A monumental achievement.' – Jessie Childs, author of God's Traitors.
‘A notorious fiend’, ‘generally odious’, ‘he seems hideous, and so he is.’
Thanks to the invidious reputation of his most famous work, The Prince,
Niccolò Machiavelli exerts a unique hold over the popular imagination.
But was Machiavelli as sinister as he is often thought to be? Might he
not have been an infinitely more sympathetic figure, prone to political
missteps, professional failures and personal dramas?
Alexander Lee reveals the man behind the myth, following him from
cradle to grave, from his father’s penury and the abuse he suffered at a
teacher’s hands, to his marriage and his many affairs (with both men
and women), to his political triumphs and, ultimately, his fall from
grace and exile. In doing so, Lee uncovers hitherto unobserved
connections between Machiavelli’s life and thought. He also reveals the
world through which Machiavelli moved: from the great halls of
Renaissance Florence to the court of the Borgia pope, Alexander VI, from
the dungeons of the Stinche prison to the Rucellai gardens, where he
would begin work on some of his last great works.
As
much a portrait of an age as of a uniquely engaging man, Lee’s gripping
and definitive biography takes the reader into Machiavelli’s world –
and his work – more completely than ever before.