Niccolò's Smile Anniversary Edition

In 2000, Maurizio Viroli published what is considered among the best biographies of Machiavelli: Niccolò's Smile. Machiavelli smiled, Viroli writes, told stories, played the lyre, and wrote comedies to mask and attenuate his sadness. In this revised biography, Viroli suggests that Machiavelli's smile was that of a good man. His was the goodness that compels one to 'serve the common good of one's country, to care for one's family, relatives, and friends, to be compassionate, and to pursue true glory.' Coinciding with the 500th anniversary of Machiavelli's death, Niccolò's Smile puts to rest the inadequate scholarship on Machiavelli's life and thought. Viroli vividly presents Machiavelli not as a 'teacher of evil' but as a generous, humorous, wise man whose smile covered his sadness at the miseries of human conditions and the corruption and enslavement of his fatherland.