Niccolò Machiavelli was born in Florence in 1469 to a family of modest means. His father was a lawyer who loved books, and Niccolò grew up reading the Roman classics. In 1498, at age 29, he became Second Chancellor of the Florentine Republic, a post that put him in charge of foreign affairs and later defense. Over the next fourteen years he traveled on diplomatic missions across Italy and to France and Germany, and he met figures like Cesare Borgia, Louis XII, and Pope Julius II. He also created Florence's citizen militia, which won back the city of Pisa in 1509. When the Medici returned to power in 1512, Machiavelli lost his post. The next year he was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy and tortured, then released in a general pardon. Exiled to his country house near San Casciano, he wrote The Prince, the Discourses on Livy, The Art of War, a History of Florence, and The Mandrake, a comic play still staged today. The Medici eventually gave him small jobs, but when they fell again in 1527 and a new republic rose, its leaders saw him as tied to the Medici and passed him over. He died that same year, at 58. The Prince was published in 1532, five years after his death, and the Catholic Church later banned it. Today he's seen as one of the founders of modern political science.
