What is Niccolò Machiavelli?
__FORCETOC__ {{infobox writer | name = Niccolò Machiavelli | image = File:Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli by Santi di Tito.jpg | caption = A portrait of Macchiavelli, by Santi di Tito | birth_date = {{birth date|1469|05|03}} | birth_place = [[Florence|Florence, Republic of Florence]] | death_date = {{death date and age|1527|06|21|1469|05|03}} | death_place = Florence, Republic of Florence | genres = [[Non-fiction]], [[novella]]s, [[play (theatre)|plays]], [[poetry]] | subjects = [[Classics]], [[history]], [[military science]], [[philosophy]], [[politics]], [[royal family|royalty]], [[virtue]] | period = [[Italian Renaissance]] | spouse = {{marriage|Marietta Corsini|1502}} | module = {{infobox | child = yes | label1 = {{nowrap|Known for}} | data1 = [[Realism theory]] | data2 = {{infobox philosopher | embed = yes | influences = {{hlist|[[Xenophon]]| [[Plutarch]]| [[Petrarch]]| [[Tacitus]]| [[Polybius]]| [[Sallust]]| [[Livy]]| [[Thucydides]]| [[Dante]]| [[Ibn Khaldun]]| [[Girolamo Savonarola|Savonarola]]}} | influenced = {{hlist|[[Francis Bacon]]| [[Thomas Hobbes]]| [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]]| [[Baruch Spinoza]]| [[Edward Gibbon]]| [[David Hume]]| [[John Adams]]| [[Marquis de Sade]]| [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Georg Hegel]]| [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]| [[Vilfredo Pareto]]| [[Antonio Gramsci]]| [[Louis Althusser]]| [[Thomas Schelling]]| [[Denis Diderot]]| [[Carl Schmitt]]| [[Giulio Andreotti]]| [[Leo Strauss]]| [[Max Weber]]<ref>{{cite book |last1= Najemy |first1= John M. |title= The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli |date= 2010 |publisher= Cambridge University Press |page= 259}}</ref>}} | signature = Machiavelli Signature.svg }}}}}} '''Niccolò Machiavelli''' (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was a Florentine [[Renaissance man]], [[statesman]], and [[writer]]. He was a [[diplomat]] and [[official|government official]] in the [[House of Medici|Medici period]] of the Florentine Republic.<ref name=Honeycutt>{{cite encyclopedia|last=Honeycutt|first=Kevin|title=Niccolò Machiavelli (1469—1527)|encyclopedia=Internet Encyclope