Biographies (in the order of the Units)

1. Niccolo Machiavelli [nIkql'o "mxkIq'velI] (1469-1527), Italian political theorist whose book The Prince (1513) describes the achievement and maintenance of power by a determined ruler indifferent to moral considerations.

Italian historian, statesman, and political philosopher, whose amoral but influential writings on statecraft have turned his name into a synonym for cunning and duplicity. Born in Florence, Machiavelli entered government service as a clerk and rose to prominence when the Florentine Republic was proclaimed in 1498. He was secretary of the ten-man council that conducted the diplomatic negotiations and supervised the military operations of the republic.

He became acquainted with many of the Italian rulers and was able to study their political tactics. From 1503 to 1506 Machiavelli reorganized the military defense of the republic of Florence.

In 1512, when the republic was dissolved, he was deprived of office and briefly imprisoned. After his release he retired to his estate near Florence, where he wrote his most important works. In his most famous work, The Prince (1532), he describes the method by which a prince can acquire and maintain political power. This study is based on Machiavelli's belief that a ruler is not bound by traditional ethical norms. In his view, a prince should be concerned only with power and be bound only by rules that would lead to success in political actions. Machiavellianism, as a term, has been used to describe the principles of power politics, and the type of person who uses those principles in political or personal life is frequently described as a Machiavellian.

2. Thomas Hobbes ['tPmqs hPbz] (1588-1679), English political philosopher who wrote Leviathan (1651), which outlined his philosophy that human beings are fundamentally selfish.

English philosopher and political theorist, one of the first modern Western thinkers to provide a secular justification for the political state. Regarded as an important early influence on the philosophical doctrine of utilitarianism, Hobbes also laid the foundations of modern sociology by applying mechanistic principles to explain human motivation and social organization .

Born in Malmesbury, Hobbes studied at the University of Oxford. He became a tutor and traveled in France and Italy. In 1637 he returned to England and published his Little Treatise, outlining his theory of motion. When his book The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic was circulated in 1640, he fled to Paris, fearing his arrest.

In 1642 Hobbes finished On Citizenship, a statement of his theory of government. His best-known work, Leviathan; or, The Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil (1651), is a forceful exposition of his doctrine of sovereignty. Hobbes held that people are fearful and predatory and must submit to the absolute supremacy of the state, in both secular and religious matters, in order to live by reason and gain lasting preservation. He also proposed that human actions are caused by material phenomena and people are motivated by appetite or aversion. In 1666 the English House of Commons included Leviathan among books to be investigated on charges of atheistic tendencies, causing Hobbes to burn many of his papers and delay publication of several works.

3. Dante Alighieri ['dxntq q'lIgIqri] (1265-1321), Italian poet whose masterpiece, The Divine Comedy (completed 1321), details his visionary progress through Hell and Purgatory, escorted by Virgil, and through Heaven, guided by his lifelong idealized love Beatrice. Italian poet, and one of the supreme figures of world literature, who was admired for his spiritual vision and for his intellectual accomplishment.