Review: The Letters of Machiavelli: Newly Edited and Translated

The Letters of Machiavelli: Newly Edited and Translated by Allan Gilbert

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This is a fascinating book, if only for seeing into the thinking and life of a 16th Century luminary of Florence at a time when Popes commanded armies (with surprising fallibility) and letters had to be hand delivered by friendly messengers (with unsurprising lack of reliability).

Some things I didn't like about the presentation: the letter-specific notes collected in one, large introduction when it would be better to intersperse them so that they were strategically places alongside relevant letters. Also, maybe not every letter to Machiavelli would have been helpful, but I am sure a few to several would have really helped. As a minor point, relying Machiavelli's first name should have stopped after any risk of confusion with family members was past.

I was surprised how crude and chummy Machiavelli was in letters to an ambassador (not about him personally, but how this is indicative about how base and common such communications could have been then). I was also surprised to learn how meteoric and inexplicable was his rise to government, but the vagaries of fortune once tied to the De Medici family made tragic sense. I was also surprised how involved and opinionated he was in military affairs.



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