ABSTRACT
The Renaissance, though it produced no important theoretical philosopher, produced one man of supreme eminence in political philosophy: Niccolo Machiavelli. It is the custom to be shocked by him, and he certainly is sometimes shocking. Machiavelli was a Florentine, whose father, a lawyer, was neither rich nor poor. His most famous work, The Prince , was written in 1513, and dedicated to Lorenzo the Second, since he hoped (vainly, as it proved) to win the favour of the Medici. Its tone is perhaps partly due to this practical purpose; his longer work, the Discourses , which he was writing at the same time, is markedly more republican and more liberal. It is to be noted that Machiavelli never bases any political argument on Christian or biblical grounds. Medieval writers had a conception of 'legitimate' power, which was that of the Pope and the Emperor, or derived from them.
