One of four city-states in modern-day Italy, Florence had been ruled since 1434 by the Medici, a wealthy family with roots in banking and close ties to the Vatican. Like the rest of Italy, Florence was threatened by an ongoing battle for control of Naples between France and Spain, both of which had eyes on the Italian peninsula. Supported by the French, the reformist Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola wrested control of Florence from Piero de'Medici in 1493 and established a new republic. A moral zealot determined to purify Florence from the corrupting influences of the Renaissance, Savonarola was eventually removed from power and burned at the stake as a heretic; some historians believe that Machiavelli may have played a small part in this insurrection.
In 1948, after the fanatical Savonarola's execution and the establishment of a Florentine Republic under Pier Soderini, twenty-nine-year-old Machiavelli gained a public appointment as secretary that brought with it much prestige. Widely read in the classics--particularly the histories of Tacitus and Livy--the young civil servant now supplemented his classical studies of politics with personal observation through his active role in the diplomatic negotiations of his native Florence.
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