The word Machiavellian conjures a shadowy puppet master pulling strings from the dark. The real Niccolo Machiavelli was a mid-level civil servant who survived political torture, lost everything, and wrote history's most infamous manual for tyrants as a desperate cover letter to get his old job back. This episode strips away 500 years of myth to explore the actual life of the man, from his childhood in a Florence where assassins drew daggers during mass to his final rejection by the very republic he loved.

We follow his rise at 29 to head of the Second Chancery, his diplomatic missions to the King of France and the Pope, and his fascination with the ruthless warlord Cesare Borgia, whose trap at Senigallia he witnessed firsthand. We cover his citizen militia that conquered Pisa in 1509, its annihilation at Prato in 1512, his three weeks under ...