Abstract

The extremely pernicious and paganly immoral principles stated by the Florentine secretary run counter to all national thought and have incontestably exercised a corrupting influence on it.F. SchlegelWe must be grateful to Machiavelli and other writers who like him have openly and without dissimulation shown not how men ought to act, but how they do normally act.F. BaconThe interpretation of Machiavelli's philosophy of history encounters specific difficulties. His contribution to the history of thought is unique and yet rooted in the culture that was typical of the Renaissance; it constitutes—something rarely found among the creative spirits of the High Renaissance—the logical-historical limit of that culture, the critical point at which the contradictions that characterize it tragically come to light.