Lehal Library

1525, Pope Clement VII, alias Giulio de’ Medici (Giovanni’s cousin), drew the e­ x‑­diplomat back into politics, asking him for advice on how to deal with the growing antagon- ism between the French and the Spanish. As an eventual clash between the two great powers inside Italy loomed ever closer, Machiavelli was given the task of overseeing Florence’s defensive walls. When the crunch came, how- ever, and the armies of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, now united under the same crown, marched south into Italy, they simply bypassed Florence, went straight to Rome and sacked it. It was an occasion of the most disgraceful savagery on a scale Italy had not witnessed for centuries. In the aftermath, the Medici regime in Florence collapsed and once again Machiavelli was out of favour. Over- whelmed with disappointment and in the habit of taking medicines that weren’t good for him, he died in June 1527, aged ­fifty-­eight, having accepted, no doubt after careful calculation, extreme unction. That there are many different roads to notoriety and that a man’s achievements may combine with historical events in unexpected ways, are truths Machiavelli was well aware of. So he would have appreciated the irony that it was largely due to Luther’s Protestant reform and the ensuing wars of religion that his name became the object of the most implacable vilification and, as a consequence, univer- sally famous. The turning point came in 1572. The Prince had not been