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Title: another look
Review: To us, Machiavelli is remembered as a byword for cynical and devious political manipulation. Mostly due to his seminal book, Prince. Yet the essays here reveal a more complicated person. He ardently believed in Italy, at a time when the peninsula was fragmented into a bevy of quarrelling kingdoms. One historian, Felix Gilbert, expounds on this at length.Another, Joseph Kraft, tries to disabuse the reader of any mistaken comparison of Machiavelli with modern scientists. He reminds us of excerpts where Machiavelli speaks of omens, the occult and spirits. So rather than a cold eyed realist, for which he is often held to be, Machiavelli is as superstitious as many of his time, in medieval Europe.
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