The Discourses

Discourses on Livy (1531) demonstrates Machiavelli's fundamental preference for the republicanism of ancient Rome. In an age when political absolutism was increasingly the norm, Machiavelli's republican theories would become a dangerous ideology, and his works were placed on the Index of Prohibited Works in 1559. This new translation is richly annotated, providing the contemporary reader with sufficient historical, linguistic and political information to understand and interpret the revolutionary affirmations Machiavelli made, based on the historical evidence he found in Livy.

Julia Conaway Bondanella is Associate Professor of French & Italian and Associate Director of the Honors Division at Indiana University. She is Coeditor of Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists in World's Classics. Peter Bondanella is Distinguished Porfessor of Comparative Literature and Professor of Film Studies, Italian and West European Studies at Indiana University. He edited and co-translated Machiavelli's The Prince (WC).