The Man Behind ‘Machiavellian’ Niccolò Machiavelli was born in Florence in 1469, during the height of the Italian Renaissance. His name has become synonymous with cunning, manipulation, and ruthless political strategy. To call someone Machiavellian is to accuse them of cynical calculation, of placing power above morality, of using any means necessary to achieve their ends. But this reputation, while not entirely undeserved, obscures who Machiavelli actually was and what he was trying to accomplish with his writings. Machiavelli was not a prince or a tyrant but a mid-level bureaucrat in the Florentine Republic. For fourteen years, from 1498 to...