Niccolò Machiavelli was born in Florence in 1469, amid the fierce rivalries of the Italian city-states. After the Medici were expelled in 1494, he rose through the administration of the Florentine Republic. As a secretary and diplomat, he undertook missions to foreign courts and observed powerful rulers, including Cesare Borgia. These experiences gave him a close view of the realities of political power.

When the Medici returned in 1512, Machiavelli lost his office. Suspected of conspiracy, he was imprisoned and tortured in 1513. After his release he retired to the countryside, where he wrote The Prince. The treatise examined how rulers could acquire and maintain power, even when political necessity conflicted with conventional morality.

Machiavelli also wrote on republican government, warfare and Roman history. The Prince was not published until 1532, five years after his death. Its unsentimental treatment of power eventually made his name a byword for calculated and ruthless politics. Yet his thinking was more complex than this reputation suggests: he sought to understand why states survive and why they collapse. He died in Florence in 1527.