Bernardo di Niccolò Machiavelli (between 1426 and 1429 – 1500) was a citizen of

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

and father to

Niccolò Machiavelli Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was a Florentine diplomat, author, philosopher, and historian who lived during the Italian Renaissance. He is best known for his political treatise '' The Prince'' (), writte ...

. Although he was a Doctor of Law (hence, his title of ''Messer''), debts inherited from his father and uncles limiting his career prevented him from joining the legal guild. In the year 1480, Bernardo reported being unemployed on his tax return. Miles Unger: ''Machiavelli: A Biography,'' p. 22, New York 2011, He is known independently for his diary or ''Libro di Ricordi'', chronicling the years 1474–1487. The pages, housed in the Biblioteca Riccardiana in Florence, serve as a valuable window into everyday life and culture during the time and provide the only reliable information on his famous son's early youth. Bernardo Machiavelli was married to Bartolommea di Stefano Nelli. They had four children, Primavera, Margherita, Niccolò (the author of ''

The Prince ''The Prince'' ( ; ) is a 16th-century political treatise written by the Italian diplomat, philosopher, and Political philosophy, political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli in the form of a realistic instruction guide for new Prince#Prince as gener ...

'') and Totto.

References

Bibliography

* Catherine Atkinson: ''Debts, Dowries, Donkeys. The Diary of Niccolò Machiavelli’s Father, Messer Bernardo, in Quattrocento Florence'', Frankfurt am Main 2002, * Cesare Olschki, Hrsg.: ''Bernardo Machiavelli, Libro di Ricordi'', Florenz 1954. 1420s births 1500 deaths Italian male writers Writers from Florence Niccolò Machiavelli Italian diarists 15th-century people from the Republic of Florence {{Italy-writer-stub