Niccolò Machiavelli @540

Niccolò Machiavelli (Detail of 1500 portrait of Machiavelli by Santi di Tito)

Niccolò Machiavelli (May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527) was Italian historian, statesman and political author. His best-known work is The Prince, the posthumously published treatise responsible for bringing the authorial descriptive “Machiavellian” into wide usage as a pejorative term to denote power-hungry, megalomanic, unethical or despotic practices or methods.

Machiavellian

1. Attempting to achieve their goals by cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous methods.

   Iago is the Machiavellian antagonist in William Shakespeare’s play, Othello.