official in the Florentine Government. His youth, however, was passed

during some of the most tumultuous years in the history of Florence. He

born the year that Lorenzo the Magnificent came to power, subverting the

traditional civil liberties of Florence while inaugurating a reign of

unrivaled luxury and of great brilliance for the arts. He was twenty-five

at the time of Savonarola’s attempt to establish a theocratic democracy,

although, from the available evidence, he took no part in it. Yet through

his family, he was closer to many of these events than many Florentine

citizens. The Machiavelli family for generations had held public office,

and his father was a jurist and a minor official. Machiavelli himself,

shortly after the execution of Savanarola, became Secretary of the Second

Chancery, which was to make him widely known among his contemporaries as

By virtue of his position Machiavelli served the “Ten of Liberty and

who sent their own ambassadors to foreign powers, transacted business with

the cities of the Florentine domain, and controlled the military

Some topics in this essay:
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