Machiavelli as a historical character is a paradoxical figure, and the first of the paradoxes lies in the obvious discrepancy between his political status and worldwide fame. How did a middling official, who did not hold high positions and was not vested with power, manage to offer a universal analysis of the chaotic picture of the world in which he lived and enter the world history of political thought? How did it happen that Machiavelli instantly and for centuries acquired European - and very scandalous - fame, and his thought was generalized, or rather, enclosed in the Procrustean bed of the firmly established term “Machiavellianism,” which became synonymous with cynical hypocrisy? Jean-Yves Borjo, professor at the University of Nantes , a specialist in the Renaissance, translator of many great works of Italian humanists, including Machiavelli’s treatises “The Prince” and “On the Art of War,” presents in a new light the famous “Florentine secretary”, who in politics preferred efficiency to morality, was a connoisseur of ancient authors, but did not find recognition either among his own or subsequent generations. Borje restores justice by defining Machiavelli's true place in the history of Western political thought and giving the reader a unique opportunity to learn the true face of the great Florentine.