The first modern political scientist was the Italian writer Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527). His infamous work The Prince (1531), a treatise originally dedicated to Florence’s ruler, Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, presented amoral advice to actual and would-be princes on the best means of acquiring and holding on to political power. Machiavelli’s political philosophy, which completed the secularization of politics begun by Marsilius, was based on reason rather than religion. An early Italian patriot, Machiavelli believed that Italy could be unified and its foreign occupiers expelled only by ruthless and single-minded princes who rejected any moral constraints ... (100 of 10,236 words)Early modern developments