We have been trained to think of Machiavelli as the apologist for power politics. In fact, his passion for the ideal of liberty was so strong, it cost him his career and almost cost him his life. It had made him a follower of Savonarola; paradoxically, it also made him the author of his most notorious work, The Prince. Some would insist that the book was inspired by the devil.25 But Machiavelli was only a close student of Aristotle’s version of civic liberty, which led him in the wake of Savonarola’s fall to ask some uncomfortable questions.
