LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Machiavelli: Works
built 137 days ago
In person Machiavelli was of middle height, black-haired, with rather a small head, very bright eyes and slightly aquiline nose. His thin, close lips often broke into a smile of sarcasm. His activity was almost feverish. When unemployed in work or study he was not averse to the society of boon companions, gave himself readily to transient amours, and corresponded in a tone of cynical bad taste. At the same time he lived on terms of intimacy with worthy men. Varchi says that "in his conversation he was pleasant, obliging to his intimates, the friend of virtuous persons."
Source:
Machiavelli does not put the execution of the three thousand in a purely religious context, but deals with Moses as the creator of a new faith and a new state. "Whoever reads the Bible sensibly will see that Moses was forced, were his laws and institutions to go forward, to kill numberless men."[13] No hypocrisy here (just overstatement); Machiavelli doesn't pretend that the means used by Moses were good. He knows that somewhere in the shards of the broken tablets it says "Thou Shalt Not Murder." He readily admits that the means are evil, but he insists that they are the only ones that work in those circumstances. From here flows the well-known list of terrible measures that can be deployed against dangerous and unruly subjects and other potential or actual enemies: lying, cheating, deceiving, killing, and so forth.
Source:
The basic game of Machiavelli will be very familiar to any experienced Dip player. Diplomacy and order writing work just the same. There are two major differences in the game. The first of these is that there are three seasons each year: Spring, Summer, and Fall. Control of provinces and cities is determined at the beginning of the Spring turn of each year -- functionally the same as in Diplomacy.
Source:
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), whose work derived from sources as authentically humanistic as those of Ficino, proceeded along a wholly opposite course. A throwback to the chancellor-humanists Salutati, Bruni, and Poggio, he served Florence in a similar capacity and with equal fidelity, using his erudition and eloquence in a civic cause. Like Vittorino and other early humanists,...
Source:
The most obvious reason why the work does not (for the majority of readers) register as a satire is that, if Machiavelli intended the work to be read that way, his ironies are not sufficiently maintained throughout. It is possible to cull the work (as I have done) for moments in which a satiric tone seems possible (even probable), but that ironic tone is very uneven and (I must confess) often rather tame, insufficiently mordant and funny (although, to judge from some student responses, those who do read it as satire can still find a good deal of humour in its pages).
Source:
In his lesser-known work, Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli advocates republican governance. This edition Includes a substantial introduction on the author and his work, explanatory notes, and a glossary of key words with occurrences and alternate translation.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Works