Thanks to his most famous work, The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli exerts a unique hold over the popular imagination. But was Machiavelli as sinister as he is often thought to be?

In Machiavelli: His Life and Times, Alexander Lee reveals the man behind the myth, following him from cradle to grave, from his fathers penury and the abuse he suffered at a teacher's hands, to his marriage and his many affairs (with both men and women), to his political triumphs and, ultimately, his fall from grace and exile. In doing so, Lee uncovers hitherto unobserved connections between Machiavelli's life and thought.

As much a portrait of an age as of a uniquely engaging man, Lees gripping and definitive biography takes the reader into Machiavelli's world — and his work — more completely than ever before.