Talk:Niccolò Machiavelli

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Regarding the militia

"Between 1503 and 1506, Machiavelli was responsible for the Florentine militia. ... Under his command, Florentine citizen-soldiers defeated Pisa in 1509." <-- That 1509 being out of the interval mentioned needs explanation. Sz. (talk) 14:27, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This has been rewritten with citations.Åüñîçńøł (talk) 14:45, 3 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 18 September 2020

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The lede contains who unclear/confusing sentences:

"Machiavelli's name came to evoke similar unscrupulous acts of the sort he advised most famously in The Prince." tells the reader these unscrupulous acts are similar - so the reader wonders if they have missed something... similar to what? Please change this sentence to "Machiavelli's name came to evoke unscrupulous acts of the sort he advised most famously in The Prince." (That is, the removal of the word "similar" - it adds nothing but confusion.)
"With scholars such as Leo Strauss and others stating that Machiavelli was a "teacher of evil"." This is not a complete sentence. It was contributed by @EnlightenedWikipedian: so maybe it's just a fragment that was not fully thought out. Please change it to "Scholars such as Leo Strauss stated that Machiavelli was a "teacher of evil"." (That is, remove the dysfunctional "With"; remove the superfluous "and others" made redundant by the "scholars such as"; and change "stating" to past tense.)

Thankyou! 49.181.229.71 (talk) 10:39, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Appreciate the proofreading! ◢ Ganbaruby!  (Say hi!) 22:11, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Machiavelli's intentions.

I think the article can be improved by an additional paragraph or section that explains what we know about Machiavelli's intentions behind his advice to the Prince. The article seems to imply that it doesn't matter to Machiavelli what vision or intentions the Prince has for his realm, or whether the Prince has overpowering narcissistic tendencies or not. There are a few mentions that Machiavelli considered some Princely behaviors "good." By what criteria, "good"? Only to maintain reign, or "good" as in any kind of humanistic concern for the Prince's subjects? Why does Machiavelli want to instruct the Prince how to behave? What were Machiavelli's own intentions in writing the book? It seems to me this is a glaring omission in this article. Or maybe that's why Machiavelli is hard to understand, because he keeps his cards close to his chest? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iwasathought (talk • contribs) 21:56, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please write in terms of what published expert sources say. That is what we try to summarize. I think there is indeed a lot of discussion about how important his intentions might have been, just a lot of disagreement about the details of what those intentions were? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:32, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In regards to the thoughts of another, we can only speculate. Machiavelli never left clear answers to the questions you asked, the best we have are various analysis which speculate about the questions above.2601:140:8D01:C90:6924:6988:965D:535 (talk) 21:07, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There certainly have been a lot of authors who've published their opinions about his real intentions. He was clearly avoiding being clear about them. It is a long running controversy. Rousseau saw it him Machiavelli as a joker, and in the 20th century Strauss apparently had a lot of sympathy for that reading. I think this is to some extent already covered in the article?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Correspondence "well known"

After Machiavelli retired, he corresponded with friends. This correspondence is described as "well known." It is not clear — was it well known by his contemporaries or by today’s scholars? Does the phrase matter? What does the phrase add to the sentence? Wis2fan (talk) 03:19, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It is very famous among modern scholars. Of course it would not have been famous when it was still private.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:32, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]