An unlikely prince : the life and the times of Machiavelli

Grasping, envious, and proud -- Worse than a crime -- Warfare and statecraft -- Two funerals and a wedding -- Be my valentine -- Hollow words -- A most beautiful thing -- The armed prophet -- Council and conciliation -- The night's Pier Soderini died -- Satan's progeny -- The bystander's grin -- A history of lies -- Fortune's fickleness -- Lost opportunities -- Epilogue: name-calling. In this compelling new biography, historian Niccolò Capponi frees Machiavelli (1469–1527) from centuries of misinterpretation. Exploring the Renaissance city of Florence, where Machiavelli lived, Capponi reveals the man behind the legend. A complex portrait of Machiavelli emerges—at once a brilliantly skillful diplomat and a woefully inept liar; a sharp thinker and an impractical dreamer; a hardnosed powerbroker and a risk-taking gambler; a calculating propagandist and an imprudent jokester. Capponi's intimate portrait of Machiavelli reveals his behavior as utterly un-Machiavellian, his vision of the world as limited by his very provincial outlook. In the end, Machiavelli was frustrated by his own political failures and utterly baffled by the success of his book The Prince . A portrait of the revolutionary political philosopher challenges popular beliefs about the cruelty of his character to reveal the complexities and sympathetic nature of his personality. An acclaimed historian presents a fresh and revealing portrait of famous political theorist Niccol Machiavelli and his native-born city of Florence