Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power
Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power

Author: Roger D. Masters

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess

Published: 2016-10-14

Total Pages: 477

ISBN-13: 0268160112

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In recent years, Niccolò Machiavelli's works have been viewed primarily with historical interest as analysis of the tactics used by immoral political officials. Roger D. Masters, a leading expert in the relationship between modern natural sciences and politics, argues boldly in this book that Machiavelli should be reconsidered as a major philosopher whose thought makes the wisdom of antiquity accessible to the modern (and post-modern) condition, and whose understanding of human nature is superior to that of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, or Mill. Central to Masters's claim is his discovery, based on previously untranslated documents, that Machiavelli knew and worked with Leonardo da Vinci between 1502-1507. An interdisciplinary tour de force, Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power will challenge, perplex, and ultimately delight readers with its evocative story of the relationship between Machiavelli and da Vinci, their crucial roles in the emergence of modernity, and the vast implications this holds for contemporary life and society.

Fortune is a River
Fortune is a River

Author: Roger D. Masters

Publisher: Plume Books

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9780452280908

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Masters provides a concise and insightful description of the partnership of two of history's greatest geniuses--Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli--and their scheme to make Florence a seaport. photo insert.

Machiavelli
Machiavelli

Author: Ross King

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-10-13

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 0061870730

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New York Times bestselling author Ross King’s biography Machiavelli is “a convincing portrait of one of the most misunderstood thinkers of all time.”* The author of The Prince—his controversial handbook on power, which is one of the most influential books ever written—Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) was no prince himself. Born to an established middle-class family, Machiavelli worked as a courtier and diplomat for the Republic of Florence and enjoyed some small fame in his time as the author of bawdy plays and poems. In this discerning biography, Ross King rescues Machiavelli’s legacy from caricature, detailing the vibrant political and social context that influenced his thought and underscoring the humanity of one of history’s finest political thinkers. “Provides a strong sense of the history of both the man and his times and a nice introduction to Machiavelli’s writings. Moreover, like one of Machiavelli’s bawdy plays, it is a riveting and exhilarating read, full of salacious details and brisk prose.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) “An engaging, revealing biography and a vivid portrait of a city-state in turmoil.” —Financial Times

Thoughts on Machiavelli
Thoughts on Machiavelli

Author: Leo Strauss

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2014-07-04

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 022623097X

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The esteemed philosopher’s assessment of good, evil, and the value of Machiavelli. Leo Strauss argued that the most visible fact about Machiavelli’s doctrine is also the most useful one: Machiavelli seems to be a teacher of wickedness. Strauss sought to incorporate this idea in his interpretation without permitting it to overwhelm or exhaust his exegesis of The Prince and Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy. “We are in sympathy,” he writes, “with the simple opinion about Machiavelli [namely, the wickedness of his teaching], not only because it is wholesome, but above all because a failure to take that opinion seriously prevents one from doing justice to what is truly admirable in Machiavelli: the intrepidity of his thought, the grandeur of his vision, and the graceful subtlety of his speech.” This critique of the founder of modern political philosophy by this prominent twentieth-century scholar is an essential text for students of both authors.

The Stolen Notebooks
The Stolen Notebooks

Author: SUSAN AUDREY GRUNDY

Publisher: Susan Audrey Grundy

Published: 2019-09-29

Total Pages: 131

ISBN-13:

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Delving into reasons biographers assume Tuscan painter Leonardo da Vinci wrote the Notebooks, hunting down sources and original texts, South African art historian Susan Grundy uncovers it was only Leonardo’s young heir Milanese Francesco Melzi who said these were the artist's Notebooks. In the nineteenth century European scholars began to access these Notebooks in more depth, transcribing the arcane backwards Italian and translating them into English. They discovered a man who did not seem to be Tuscan Leoanrdo da Vinci, as he seemed to be a man from the East. Yet, this reality was closed down by researchers determined to continue with the myth of the self-educated genius from a farm in Tuscany.

Lineages of European Political Thought
Lineages of European Political Thought

Author: Cary J. Nederman

Publisher: CUA Press

Published: 2009-04

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0813215811

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This book examines some of the salient historiographical and conceptual issues that animate current scholarly debates about the nature of the medieval contribution to modern Western political ideas

Seeking Real Truths: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Machiavelli
Seeking Real Truths: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Machiavelli

Author: Patricia Vilches

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2007-07-30

Total Pages: 467

ISBN-13: 9047421132

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The thought and influence of Machiavelli have had a significant impact on a variety of academic disciplines, including political science and government, history, literature, language, theatre, and philosophy. Rather than inscribe Machiavelli within the boundaries of a single academic approach, tradition, or discourse, this volume assembles multidisciplinary perspectives on his writings on government, on his creative works, and on his legacy. The result is intended to appeal at once to generalists seeking baseline knowledge of Machiavelli and to specialists who are interested in critical views of Machiavelli that use a broad lens and that approach their subject from different angles. Contributors include: Susan Ashley, Salvatore Bizzarro, Julia Bondanella, JoAnn Cavallo, Salvatore Di Maria, Marie Gaille-Nikodimov, Eugene Garver, Joseph Khoury, William Klein, Sante Matteo, Gerry Milligan, RoseAnna Mueller, John Roe, Gerald Seaman, Charles Tarlton, Patricia Vilches, and Mary Walsh.

The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior
The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior

Author: Paul Strathern

Publisher: Bantam

Published: 2009-09-29

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 0553906895

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Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Cesare Borgia—three iconic figures whose intersecting lives provide the basis for this astonishing work of narrative history. They could not have been more different, and they would meet only for a short time in 1502, but the events that transpired when they did would significantly alter each man’s perceptions—and the course of Western history. In 1502, Italy was riven by conflict, with the city of Florence as the ultimate prize. Machiavelli, the consummate political manipulator, attempted to placate the savage Borgia by volunteering Leonardo to be Borgia’s chief military engineer. That autumn, the three men embarked together on a brief, perilous, and fateful journey through the mountains, remote villages, and hill towns of the Italian Romagna—the details of which were revealed in Machiavelli’s frequent dispatches and Leonardo’s meticulous notebooks. Superbly written and thoroughly researched, The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior is a work of narrative genius—whose subject is the nature of genius itself.

Between Form and Event: Machiavelli's Theory of Political Freedom
Between Form and Event: Machiavelli's Theory of Political Freedom

Author: M. Vatter

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-04-17

Total Pages: 569

ISBN-13: 940159337X

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Before Machiavelli, political freedom was approached as a problem of the best distribution of the functions of ruler and ruled. Machiavelli changed the terms of freedom, requiring that its discourse address the demand for no-rule or non-domination. Political freedom would then develop only through a strategy of antagonism to every form of legitimate domination. This leads to the emergence of modern political life: any institution that wishes to rule legitimately must simultaneously be inscribed with its immanent critique and imminent subversion. For Machiavelli, the possibility of instituting the political form is conditioned by the possibility of changing it in an event of political revolution. This book shows Machiavelli as a philosopher of the modern condition. For him, politics exists in the absence of those absolute moral standards that are called upon to legitimate the domination of man over man. If this understanding lies open to relativism and historicism, it does so in order to render effective the project of reinventing the sense of human freedom. Machiavelli's legacy to modernity is the recognition of an irreconcilable tension between the demands of freedom and the imperatives of morality.