This collection comprises sixteen studies. Harvey Mansfield seems to undervalue the negative quality of necessity for Machiavelli: a prince should not, if possible, depart from good unless necessity makes him embrace evil (Prince 18.15). Giovanni Giorgini writes that Machiavelli “put the well-being of the state above the well-being of the individual,” but for Machiavelli and his contemporaries stato meant “regime” or “dominion,” not “the state” in modern terms, and in The Prince he never uses the term politico, which describes a good and unselfish political order in the sense of the common good (vivere politico); the purpose of politics was glory, as shown by the episode of Agathocles (Prince 8.10), not the common good. Gabriele Pedullà persuasively demonstrates that the subsequently momentous antithesis between a tumultuous but imperialist Rome and a stable but impotent Venice was down to Machiavelli (Discourses 1.4/6), who, however, was not entirely unprecedented in this regard, given rare but similar, if probably uninfluential, contrasts drawn by George of Trebizond and Poggio Bracciolini.

Miguel Vatter offers no textual evidence to link Machiavelli to the ancient theology as revived by the Byzantine and Florentine Platonists. Quentin Skinner convincingly argues that Machiavelli’s treatment of virtù involves the classical rhetorical technique of redescription whereby what is held to be a vice is actually a virtue (and vice versa), but the upshot is that Machiavelli still recommends a series of qualities (such as deception or cruelty) that are contrary to ordinary morality (as he himself admits in Discourses 1.26): redescription does not mean that Machiavelli was not separating politics from morality. In attempting to sanitize Machiavelli’s outrageous message, Erica Benner flaunts numerous philologically untenable readings: for example “uno essercito iusto” can mean only “a reasonably sized army,” not a “just” army in the moral sense, given the context of an “abbondanzia di uomini o di danari” (Prince 10.2). Stephen Holmes similarly distorts the context of Machiavellli’s remarks: thus “ostinata fede” is not the “nonstrategic devotion” of subjects empowering established rulers to resist adverse fortune, but the enthusiasm that redeemers such as Giuliano or Lorenzo de’ Medici, newly arrived on the international scene between 1513 and 1516, would rouse in Italians beleaguered by foreign armies (Prince 26.27). Paul A. Rahe disregards the irony and sarcasm unmissable in Machavelli’s discussion of ecclesiastical principalities (Prince 11). Benedetto Fontana proposes a revisionist reading of Machiavelli’s treatment of the Gracchi, praising their intentions if not their prudence—an attitude more apparently sympathetic than “that of the ancient writers.” Jérémie Barthas persuasively links military and fiscal reforms under the revived Florentine republic from 1494 to 1512: an indigenously conscripted militia would loosen the stranglehold wielded by the aristocratic elite over emergency finances required to fund mercenaries upon whom Florence had hitherto depended; besides enhancing Florence’s effectiveness on the battlefield, Machiavelli saw these military reforms (which he himself originated) as a means of arresting the impoverishment of the people through taxation in order to prevent an imagined popular uprising (Discourses 2.30.11).

Marco Genua shows that, in treating the Roman institution of dictatorship, Machiavelli relies on Cicero and Livy but not on Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as has recently been suggested. Jean-Fabien Spitz seems to suggest a democratic reading of Machiavelli, contesting Quentin Skinner’s allegedly more republican interpretation, without taking into account that the populism evident in The Prince and the Discourses was modified or even retracted in later works such as the Discourse on Florentine Affairs and especially the Florentine Histories. Neglecting overwhelming proof in Machiavelli’s later political and literary works (Sommario di Lucca, Discursus, Ricordo al cardinale Giulio, Minuta di provvisione, Clizia) of his conservatism after 1519, John McCormick claims that favorably portrayed popular actions “trump” unambiguous evaluative statements (e.g., Florentine Histories 3.1); vitiated by arbitrary selection and disregard of evidence, this approach distorts unmistakable condemnations of specific popular actions, for example, the reactions to the anonymous Ciompo’s speech in 1378: “these incitements powerfully inflamed spirits already burning in their own right with evil [male]” (3.13.22). The upshot of Machiavelli’s censure of both the people and the nobility in the Florentine Histories is a mixed constitution (a key aspiration of Florentine conservatives) whereby disparate social groups would in theory check one another’s excesses, but which would in practice lead to aristocratic predominance following Venice’s example: a structure rejected in The Prince and the Discourses, with their popular biases.

Luca Baccelli considers Machiavelli’s realism and populism, together with his theories of conflict and law. Michele Battini speculates that the militia was the first step for Machiavelli toward political empowerment of Florentine country dwellers, although there is no evidence that he took on board the revolutionary political inclusiveness inaugurated by the rebellious Pisan regime in 1499. Finally, Marie Gaille has more to say about Louis Althusser than about Machiavelli. Overall this collection may have interest for students of theoretical politics but, with a few exceptions, has less to offer those readers for whom context—both historical and intellectual—is the key to understanding Machiavelli.