piece, Dante suggests that politicians of that time in Florence should travel to hell. Another well-known form of political satire through theater is William Shakespeare's play Richard II, which criticized politics and authority figures of the time. 19th and 20th centuries France One example is Maurice Joly's 1864 pamphlet entitled The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu (Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu), which attacks the political ambitions of Napoleon III. It was first published in Brussels in 1864. The piece used the literary device of a dialogue between two diabolical plotters in Hell, the historical characters of Machiavelli and Montesquieu, to cover up a direct, and illegal, attack on Napoleon's rule. The noble baron Montesquieu made the case for liberalism; the Florentine political writer Machiavelli presented the case for cynical despotism. In this manner, Joly communicated the secret ways in which liberalism might spawn a despot like Napoleon III. The literacy rate in France was roughly 30 percent in the 19th century making virtually virtually impossible for people of lower classes to engage in political satire. However, visual arts could be interpreted by anyone and a man named Charles Philipon took advantage creating two weekly magazines, La Caricature and Le Charivari - the cheaper of the two. Philipon used his papers which had become more and more popular across France threated the king, Louis-Philippe, as the papers used satire and humor to criticize the government and King. Several attempts to suppress the two magazines were made by the monarchy which would only make the articles more critical. Philipon was eventually taken to court and sentenced to 13 months in prison following several more arrests. Germany According to Santayana, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was actually "a keen satirist". "Nietzsche's satire" was aimed at Lutheranism. United Kingdom The UK has a long tradition of political satire, dating from the early years of English literature. In some readings, a number of William Shakespeare's plays can be seen – or at least performed – as satire, including Richard III and The Merchant of Venice. Later examples such as Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal are more outright in their satirical nature. Through the 18th and 19th centuries editorial cartoons developed as graphic form of satire, with dedicated satirical magazines of the like of Punch appearing in the first half of the 19th century. In recent decades, political satire in the United Kingdom