Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (May 3, 1469 –

June 21, 1527) was an Italian philosopher, writer, and

politician and is considered one of the main founders of
modern political science. As a Renaissance Man, he was
a diplomat, political philosopher, musician, poet and
playwright, but, foremost, he was a Civil Servant of the
Florentine Republic. In June of 1498, after the ouster
and execution of Girolamo Savonarola, the Great
Council elected Machiavelli as Secretary to the second
Chancery of the Republic of Florence.

Like Leonardo da Vinci, Machiavelli is considered a

typical example of the Renaissance Man. He is most
famous for a short political treatise, The Prince, a work
of realist political theory, however, both it and the more
substantive republican Discourses on Livy went
unpublished until 1532 — after Machiavelli's death.
Although he privately circulated The Prince among
friends, the only work he published in his life was The
Art of War, about high-military science. Since the
sixteenth century, generations of politicians remain
attracted and repelled by the cynical (realist) approach
to power exposited in The Prince, the Discourses, and
the History. Whatever his personal intentions (still
debated today), his surname yielded the modern
political words "Machiavelli" (a person of acute and
scheming intelligence) and Machiavellianism (the use of
cunning and deceit in politics or generally).