Born into a modest Florentine family, Machiavelli would spend years as a diplomat and civil servant before political upheaval cost him his post. Out of that fall came 'The Prince,' a coldly practical guide to power that made his name a byword for cunning statecraft.
Niccolò Machiavelli entered the world in Florence on May 3, 1469, the son of a lawyer with more books than money. He grew up steeped in the classics, watching the Medici dominate his city's turbulent politics, and eventually rose to become a senior official in the Florentine republic, handling diplomacy and militia affairs.
When the Medici returned to power in 1512, Machiavelli was imprisoned and tortured, then exiled to his family farm. There, out of bitterness and boredom, he wrote 'The Prince,' a slim treatise dedicated—hopefully, and unsuccessfully—to winning back Medici favor. Its unsentimental advice, that rulers must sometimes act immorally to preserve the state, scandalized readers for centuries and gave the world the adjective 'Machiavellian.'
He died poor and largely unrewarded in 1527, never knowing his name would become permanently attached to the ruthless pursuit of power.