Machiavellian Rhetoric: From the Counter-Reformation to Milton

Historians of political thought have argued that the real Machiavelli is the republican thinker and theorist of civic virtue. This study argues in contrast that Renaissance readers were right to see Machiavelli as a figure of force and fraud, rhetorical cunning and deception. Taking the rhetorical Machiavel as a point of departure, Victoria Kahn argues that this figure is not simply the result of a naive misreading of Machiavelli, but is attuned to the rhetorical dimension of his political theory in a way that later thematic readings of Machiavelli are not. Her aim is to provide a revised history of Renaissance Machiavellism, particularly in England: one that sees the Machiavel and the republican as equally valid - and related - readings of Machiavelli's work.