#3: Niccolò Machiavelli
“Machiavellian” now means cunning without conscience, yet Niccolò Machiavelli spent much of his career serving the Florentine Republic. The Prince was not necessarily satire, as one popular defense claims; scholars debate its purpose, tone, and relationship to his republican writings. He analyzed how rulers gained and preserved power rather than how moralists wished they behaved. His scandal came from describing political violence plainly, exposing practices respectable governments preferred to disguise beneath noble language and ceremony.
