Presses Universitaires de France and Frémeaux & Associés offer this biography of Machiavelli, analysed and explained by Julien Le Mauff, historian of political thought and doctor of medieval studies. Understanding Machiavelli's work and thought is no easy task, such is the shadow of Machiavellianism hanging over them. The author invites us to set aside these fables in order to gain access to the political thought of the humanist and Chancellor of Florence, Niccolò Machiavelli, and to the conditions of his formation. We discover Machiavelli the man, anxious to serve the Lordship of Florence and lamenting the various reverses of fortune. His thinking was shaped by observation and participation in the political events of his time, far from a rigid vision of government inherited from Scholasticism. We discover the rich political history of Italy at the time of the Italian wars, a hotbed of humanism and a political laboratory. We follow this man who, in order to serve his country, developed an art of the State as well as an art of war in works that were admired but also condemned and blacklisted. Claude COLOMBINI FRÉMEAUX