Tag: Italy

The House of Medici by Christopher Hibbert

Could the Italian Renaissance have flourished without the Medici to finance it? This book supports Will Durant’s argument that art may be the flower of civilization, but money is the root. Yet apart from a few shining stars in the Medici family, the story is mostly one of decline that illustrates how utterly useless Europe’s …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2013/04/14/the-house-of-medici-by-christopher-hibbert/

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

There has been a movement in recent times among historians and political scientists to rehabilitate Machiavelli’s reputation. After reading this book, I cannot agree with these scholars. Machiavelli’s recipe for statesmanship is inhuman and diabolical. He clearly sees power as an end in itself and not as something to be used to serve the public …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2010/10/12/the-prince/