Niccolo Machiavelli was an Italian aristocrat from Florence who lived from 1469 to 1527, during the Renaissance in Europe. During this era, Italy lacked the stability and security of a unified nation; the country was made up of powerful city-states, without the guidance and authority of a government or a common leader. "The Prince", a piece he wrote while on exile to seek the approval of the MEdici family which ruled Florence during the first half of the 1500's, is MAchiavelli's description of the traits a leader's character should encompass. The specific messages Machiavelli tried to convey have been debated upon for centuries. However, people have generally adopted a common opinion of him as a conniving. calculating immoral, and devious man, due to the skeptical and harsh concepts he proposes.
             It is important to understand the time frame in which Machiavelli lived and developed his ideology. He has witnessed firsthand the degradation of Florence's political, economical, and social conditions due to a lack of structured and unified authority in the form of a government or a monarchy, and the attempts of Spain and France to take control of the region. His writing clearly devliers the fact that Machiavelli had lost his faith in humanity in general, repeatedly declaring, "since men are a sorry lot," (p.44) and categorizing everyone except the Prince, or leader, in a place of distrust. Another example of his contempt for people is illustrated in page 44, "For one can generally say this about men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers, avoiders of danger, greedy for gain..." One can almost deduct from these statements, in which Machiavelli undermines people, and the segments where he describes his extremely demanding expectations of the Prince, that he sets the two apart as if the one who was to be ruler were in a higher level or status of importance, belittling everyone else. Perhaps this is one of the reasons wh...