And the Hi, I'm Peter Adamson and you're listening to the History of Philosophy Podcast.

I'm Peter Adamson and you're listening to the History of Philosophy Podcast.

Brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at King's College London and the LMU in Munich, online at History of Philosophy.net.

Today's episode will be an interview about Machiavelli with Quentin Skinner, who is Barbara Beaumont,

Professor of the Humanities at Queen Mary University of London.

Hi, Professor Skinner.

Hi, Leni, so it's a privilege to be here.

Thank you very much for coming on the series.

We are, as I just said, going to be talking about Machiavelli.

Maybe you can just quickly remind the listener

who it is we're speaking about here.

Oh, yes, certainly.

Well, Nikola MachiaIveri born in 1469 a

Florentine son of a lawyer we know nothing about him really until 98 when

without apparent previous administrative experience he's made second

secretary of the republic second head of the second chancery He serves in that role for 14 years

until the Republic collapses in 1512.

And that's the great scyura in his life.

From 1512 until 1527, when dies he is converted from a diplomat and an administrator into the man of letters that we know and all the great works were written between 1513 and 1526.

You just called him a man of letters and one of the things that's very striking if you read

Maculele is that although I guess most people think about him as a political philosopher and that's why I'm covering him.

He was very interested in history.

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