Who really was Niccolò Machiavelli? A public and private portrait of the great thinker 500 years after the publication of his most famous work, The Prince. From the early years spent in Florence at the times of Lorenzo the Magnificent to the years of his rise as Secretary of the Republic and to his fall and exile. Also, the court intrigues, the conspiracies, the wars, the stories of the popes, and the ambitions of the kings. An exclusive account profiting from the testimonies of the greatest scholars of the thought of Machiavelli.