Biographer Miles Unger Recounts Life of Machiavelli

The first time biographer Miles Unger encountered the infamous Nicolo Machiavelli, he was a fifteen year old student conducting a history report for the American High School of Florence.

Though he didn't know it then the Winchester resident would come to write his recently released book, Machiavelli: A Biography in which Unger takes a fresh look at the life and writings of the Florentine diplomat whose name became synonymous with ruthlessness.

Background and Education

"I lived with my family in Florence for five years," said Unger. "During that time I became fluent in Italian-a skill I would eventually come to use in researching this book."

The former kid from Greenwhich Village was one of three brothers who first lived in the New York University apartment offered to his father, an NYU professor of history.

Unger attended Brandeis as an undergraduate where met his wife, now a practicing pyhsician. He returned to New York enrolling in the graduate program of art history at the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU. 

Unger transferred from NYU to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn changing his major to painting. Though he graduated from Pratt with a Master of Fine Arts degree, Unger was unsatisfied.

"I realized that as an average painting there wasn't much I could contribute to a field where there were many better painters," he said.

Becoming a writer

"While at Pratt I had already started writing for local NY galleries," Unger explained. "I began writing for the publication Art New England."

While working there an editor from the publishing house W.W. Norton contacted Unger asking if he would write a book about Winslow Homer. The illustrated book, The Water Colors of Winslow Homer reached puiblication in 2001.

Writing for the New York Times followed.

"The byline in the Times brought more opportunities," recalled Unger. "Having written so much about art I began thinking about other areas of interest to me."

When an agent from the publishing company Simon & Shuster approached him with a proposal Unger was eager. The initial project went through some reshaping but produced his second book, Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de'Medici in 2009. 

Uncovering Machiavelli

After the research on de Medici Unger returned to his boyhood thesis on Machiavelli with the mature skills and insights he had developed.

In Machiavelli: a Biography  published in the summer of 2011 Unger provides a richly textured account of the man who in modern times is usually associated with unprincipled concepts of governance and personal conduct.

"Machiavelli was a man who spoke honestly and irreverently about the hypocracies of his times. His best known work The Prince has left its mark," said Unger as he explained the ideas and the humanity of the man he came to reinterpret.

"Florence was a city of chaos and anarchy in the early years of the 16th century," the author continued. "No one knew that better than Machiavelli, a public servant who unjustly suffered a tortured imprisonment."

Unger assesses Machiavelli's legacy noting, "His ideas influenced great political thinkers such as John Looke and James Madison. Our constitution derives from the Machiavellian awareness that absolute power cannot be trusted."  

Unger continues to reside in Winchester where he and his wife settled 23 years ago and where they have raised their two daughter.