An Unlikely Prince

Acclaimed scholar Niccolo Capponi - a direct descendant of Machiavelli - analyses the famous political theorist in the context of his own times, revealing the many sides of the man behind the political genius and explaining his inability to capitalise on his own theories. In his compelling new biography - the first comprehensive one in English in more than forty years - historian Niccolo Capponi frees Machiavelli (1469-1527) from centuries of misinterpretation. Exploring the Renaissance city of Florence where Machiavelli lived, Capponi reveals the man behind the legends, and a complex portrait of Machiavelli emerges - he was at once a brilliantly skillful diplomat and woefully inept liar; a sharp thinker and an impractical dreamer; a hard-nosed power broker and a risk-taking gambler; a calculating propagandist and an imprudent jokester. Capponi's intimate portrait of Machiavelli shows how Machiavelli's behavior was utterly un-Machiavellian, and how his vision of the world was limited by his very provincial outlook. In the end, frustrated by his own political failures and always writing with Florence in mind and for a Florentine audience, Machiavelli was baffled by the international success of The Prince .