ABSTRACT
Though regarded as a poor historian, even by the standards of some of his contemporaries such as Francesco Guicciardini, Machiavelli (1469-1527) is a highly significant figure in the evolu tion of historical consciousness. The writings of this extraordinary man helped to crystallise the movements of secularism, empiricism and (indirectly) relativism that modern historical thought derives from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment. As far as his own historical writings are concerned, Machiavelli was hampered by the humanist framework that he knew best in its literary or rhetorical, rather than in its new critical form, but he claims a place in any account of historical thinking in three respects.
