'Machiavellian: a person who adopts the principles recommended, or supposed to have been recommended, by Machiavelli in his treatise on statecraft; a person who practises expediency in preference to morality; an intriguer or schemer. Usu. derogatory.' In this new biography of the Florentine political theorist and statesman, Michael White goes beyond our preconceptions to draw an objective picture of the author of The Prince and The Art of War. He does so by placing Machiavelli's remarkable life in the context of the Renaissance and its luminaries, such as the Borgias and Leonardo da Vinci.