There are times, depending on the individual, when imagination and reality seem delicately intertwined. I even wonder if perhaps such a condition might not in fact be the ideal way to live one's life. Or at least, are not all of us who are accustomed to the life of the mind living in a dream? Machiavelli began his adult life as a government official. If, like Faust, he had been visited by Mephistopheles and been offered the choice between literary immortality and another ten years working as an official, I do not doubt for a second that he would have opted in favor of the latter. This, I believe, is the key to understanding the difference between The Prince and a work by some other writer who has divorced himself from reality and chosen a life of seclusion.......

*Contents*
Introduction　Machiavelli's Villa at Sant' Andrea, 500 Years Later
Part 1　What Machiavelli Saw
Chapter　1　A Man Born with His Eyes Open
Chapter　2　Lorenzo de' Medici
Chapter　3　The Pazzi Conspiracy
Chapter　4　The City of Flowers
Chapter　5　Fra Girolamo
Part 2　What Machiavelli Did
Chapter　6　The Florentine Secretary's First Day (1498)
Chapter　7　The Italian Virago (1498-1499)
Chapter　8　The Chancellery's Worker Bee (1499-1502)
Chapter　9　Cesare Borgia (1502-1503)
Chapter 10　Marietta (1502-1503)
Chapter 11　"The Best Day of My Life"(1503-1506)
Chapter 12　"Chief Advisor"Machiavelli (1507-1511)
Chapter 13　Summer of 1512
Part 3　What Machiavelli Thought
Chapter 14　Birth of The Prince (1513-1515)
Chapter 15　The Young Disciples (1516-1522)
Chapter 16　Historico, Comico et Tragico (1518-1525)
Chapter 17　Guicciardini, My Friend (1521-1525)
Chapter 18　"I love my country more than my own soul"(1525-1526)
Chapter 19　The Demise of the Renaissance (1527)
Epilogue
List of Sources for Illustrations and Phots