Machiavellian [M16th] Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian statesman and scholar who lived from 1469 to 1527. His best-known work is The Prince, translated into English in 1532 and highly influential in Tudor and Elizabethan politics. It advised rulers that the acquisition and effective use of power may necessitate unethical methods that are undesirable in themselves. People simplified and exaggerated his ideas, and his name became a byword for unscrupulous, deceitful, and cunning methods.