4 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
Machiavelli's 1525 comedy — adapted from Plautus's Casina — about an aging Florentine (Nicomaco) who competes with his own son for a young ward, demonstrating that passion makes fools of men regardless of age and wisdom.
Machiavelli's commissioned history of Florence — from the city's founding through Lorenzo de' Medici's death in 1492 — applying his political analysis to Florentine history and demonstrating through historical narrative how factional conflict and the failure of civic virtue destroyed republican Florence.
Machiavelli's comic masterpiece — a 1518 play about Callimaco's scheme to sleep with the beautiful Lucrezia (wife of the foolish Nicia) through an elaborate deception involving a fake mandrake root potion — generally regarded as the greatest Italian Renaissance comedy.
Florentine diplomat, historian, and political philosopher — author of The Prince (1532) — whose ruthlessly realistic account of political power (it is better to be feared than loved; the ends justify the means) created modern political science.