The Life and Times of Niccolo Macchiavelli, by Pasquale Villari
1 2018-10-30T16:39:09-07:00 Laura Morreale ea5968063e9bb73752be7c434e8e3458b2daad8e 31948 1 English Edition, published 1892 plain 2018-10-30T16:39:09-07:00 Laura Morreale ea5968063e9bb73752be7c434e8e3458b2daad8eThis page is referenced by:
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Seeing Machiavelli through Villari
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Success of "The Life and Times of Niccolo Macchiavelli"
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From 1877 until 1882, Pasquale Villari wrote the four volumes of what is still considered one of the definitive biographies of Machiavelli. It is also an examination of the cultural context in which Machiavelli lived and wrote. The work was dedicated to, and quickly translated into English by his wife, Linda Villari, between 1878-1883, and eagerly consumed by anglophone audiences (later translations and editions, like the one shown here, appeared into the early 20th century).
Villari's explains his choice of Machiavelli as a subject worthy of study in the preface to the work, arguing that
This project will examine some of the factors which influenced Villari as he wrote his ground-breaking biography. Among these were the new approaches toward Modern History adopted by scholars and politicians in England, the personal connections between supporters of Italian unification and British intellectual elites, and the political actions undertaken by Villari at the same moment he was researching and writing his work on Machiavelli."The Middle Ages had no idea of the modern State, of which the Renaissance laid the first stone, no idea of the science of politics. Theoretically, the Middle Ages admitted no difference between the conduct of the individual and of public life...The Renaissance, on the contrary, recognized, and even exaggerated this difference; Machiavelli tried to formulate it scientifically, and, by force of his new method founded political science." English edition, London: T.Fisher Unwin, 1892, vii.
