"SparkNotes Literature Guides" is an invaluable series tackling some of the most important novels ever written and studied. Created by Harvard students for students everywhere, these indispensable study aids are thorough and informative. They feature explanations of key themes, motifs, and symbols, detailed analyses of major characters and important quotes, plot summaries and analysis, an exploration of historical context, plus key facts and potential essay topics - everything a student needs to be thoroughly prepared!
Non-negotiable: read Ada Palmer’s five-part (plus?) series on Machiavelli. I’ll wait. She makes sense of the enigma, the real Machiavelli, neither lionized nor maligned. The brave thinker; the frightened statesman. Charismatic, unorthodox, forming a response to the Borgia tyranny, trying to save his beloved Florence, playing pranks on the monks, centuries ahead of his time.
It’s the reason I read this book again. I liked it the first time; the context, of which I had grasped only part, makes it even more remarkable now.
Although credit where due: the introduction to this translation does a fair attempt at that context. It’s too Borgia-lite to paint the full bloody picture, but it has Savonarola right there on the first page, so it’s on the right track.
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10 February, 2020:
Reviewed