4 books
Niccolò Machiavelli
Retold for today's readers — each book with a summary and a free sample.
“In a shaded Florentine garden, a famous condottiere tells a circle of young friends why Italy keeps losing its wars, and how a citizen army built on Roman lines could win them again.”
“Reading the Roman historian Livy among friends in a Florentine garden, Machiavelli asks why the Roman Republic grew so great and lasted so long, and what modern cities could learn from it about liberty, conflict, religion, war and decay.”
“Commissioned by the Medici, the disgraced former secretary of the Florentine Republic tells the history of his city from the barbarian invasions to the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent — a story of factions, exiles, revolts, conspiracies and hired armies, and of how a city can grow great while tearing itself apart.”
“A dismissed Florentine diplomat, writing in exile, offers the new rulers of his city a short handbook on how states are won, held and lost — drawn from ancient history and from the princes, popes and condottieri he had watched at close quarters.”