Niccolo Machiavelli was born in 1469 and died in 1527 and lived during the Italian Renaissance in Florence. He wrote The Prince, a specula principis or “mirror for princes,” when he was forty-four-years-old after being dismissed from being a diplomat because he was suspected of conspiring against the new government when there was a change of regime. He was found innocent and left town to live with his family in the countryside, where “he tramped the hills by day and, in the long, empty evenings, began to write down some considerations on how to win power and, above all, how to hold on to it, how not to be a victim of circumstance,” which resulted in The Prince (Parks VII). Machiavelli’s own reversal of fortune was not the only example of the
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Dante was a part of the nobility in Florence who weren’t wealthy, was schooled in the scholastic culture, and studied ancient texts. During this time, Aristotle was the preferred ancient philosopher, and Aristotelian ideals can be seen throughout Dante’s work. He, like Machiavelli, lived in a turbulent time. In Dante’s lifetime, there was famine and power struggle. Dante was exiled because of the conflict between the White Guelphs and the Black Guelphs. The Ghibellines were a noble party in Europe who were for a Holy Roman Emperor and were clashing with the pope, whereas the Guelphs were mostly from the growing merchant class and aligned with the pope. The Guelph party split into the two groups after getting rid of the Ghibellines, White and Black, and Dante was a part of the White Guelphs who did not retain power. He was exiled from Florence in 1302. In 1308, he started writing his Divina Commedia, which starts in Inferno on Good Friday in 1300 and is an allegorical pilgrimage that takes seven days to complete. During Dante’s time and shortly before, people were very interested in depicting the afterlife. For instance, detail from the 12th century tympanum on the eglise of Saint Foy in Conques, France depicts the last judgement. In the work, Christ returns to bring the good back to Heaven. In one part of the piece, a devil and angel barter for someone’s soul, and in another part souls are fed to demons. Clearly, this time was chaotic enough to create an obsession with death, damnation, and eternal justice among the people. Dante’s response to the chaos of his time was a call to focus on the Aristotelian ideals of love, casting off earthly pleasures, and returning to the
Dante was a part of the nobility in Florence who weren’t wealthy, was schooled in the scholastic culture, and studied ancient texts. During this time, Aristotle was the preferred ancient philosopher, and Aristotelian ideals can be seen throughout Dante’s work. He, like Machiavelli, lived in a turbulent time. In Dante’s lifetime, there was famine and power struggle. Dante was exiled because of the conflict between the White Guelphs and the Black Guelphs. The Ghibellines were a noble party in Europe who were for a Holy Roman Emperor and were clashing with the pope, whereas the Guelphs were mostly from the growing merchant class and aligned with the pope. The Guelph party split into the two groups after getting rid of the Ghibellines, White and Black, and Dante was a part of the White Guelphs who did not retain power. He was exiled from Florence in 1302. In 1308, he started writing his Divina Commedia, which starts in Inferno on Good Friday in 1300 and is an allegorical pilgrimage that takes seven days to complete. During Dante’s time and shortly before, people were very interested in depicting the afterlife. For instance, detail from the 12th century tympanum on the eglise of Saint Foy in Conques, France depicts the last judgement. In the work, Christ returns to bring the good back to Heaven. In one part of the piece, a devil and angel barter for someone’s soul, and in another part souls are fed to demons. Clearly, this time was chaotic enough to create an obsession with death, damnation, and eternal justice among the people. Dante’s response to the chaos of his time was a call to focus on the Aristotelian ideals of love, casting off earthly pleasures, and returning to the