 "Niccolò Machiavelli (Photo courtesy: Wikipedia)")
Be Like the Fox: Machiavelli’s Lifelong Quest for Freedom
By Erica Benner
360 pp. W. W. Norton & Company. $27.95
It is January 1506. Niccolo Machiavelli is out in the Tuscan countryside recruiting for a Florentine militia. Like other Italian cities caught in the Franco-Spanish struggle for Italy, Florence is an underdefended pawn. Time presses and Machiavelli’s efforts are not going well. A reluctant peasant worries that if he gives his name for soldiering, the city will dun him for taxes. Others refuse to parade with recruits from the village next door. As old enemies, they explain, the neighbours are more
