ABSTRACT
From beginning to end, the Italian Renaissance was characterized by the notion that dialogue is the path to knowledge, that wisdom is acquired through conversing with the wise, and that the most engaging and rewarding conversation a modern can have is with the ancients. Writing to Vettori, Machiavelli described his exchanges with the ancients as a "conversation". He did not, however, indicate precisely who were the classical authors he chose to talk to, nor did he mention the names of those whom he elected to ignore; but with the help of his major works, the parties participating in the evening conversations sponsored by Machiavelli may be unmistakably identified. That Machiavelli was a Roman rather than a Greek thinker accounts for his intellectual weaknesses as a political analyst. Scholars have long recognized that Roman thought, although apprenticed to Plato and Aristotle, produced works of lesser quality than those of the Greek masters.
