Niccolò Machiavelli: life of the week

From obscure beginnings to torture, exile and desperate reinvention. The biography of Renaissance diplomat and author Niccolò Machiavelli reads like political theatre at its most brutal. In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Alexander Lee speaks to Danny Byrd about the man behind the myth. He presents Machiavelli as an everyman who loved his family and friends, sang poetry, drank, gambled, and wrote by night, producing one of the most contentious books ever, The Prince. Long condemned as a manual for tyrants, might it instead be better to see it as a clear eyed guide to political survival in unstable times?

To start us off, could you paint a picture of the world Machiavelli was born into? What was life like in Renaissance Florence at the time? The world of fifteenth century Italy was marked by disorder and upheaval, almost without end. When Machiavelli was born in 1469, Florence was notionally a republic under the de facto control of the Medici family.

Nevertheless, it was marred by profound social conflicts, social disorder, rivalry between the rich, the grandi, and the less well off popolo. At the same time, Italy itself was divided between a whole range of different states, of which Florence was just one. When Machiavelli was in his twenties, The Medici family got booted out of the city as a result of a French invasion of the peninsula. King Charles VIII of France was determined to claim the throne of the Kingdom of Naples in the south, and on his way through ended up causing all manner of trouble, including in France.

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