who was niccolo machiavelli influenced by?
Cicero Desiderius Erasmus Tacitus Plato Livy Dante Alighieri Aristotle Leonardo da Vinci Plutarch
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 Other historians regard politics as a stronger factor within the conclave than pure simony , with the personal rivalvry between Giuliano della Rovere and Ascanio Sforza ( who had met to discuss the upcoming conclave in Castel Gandolfo even before Innocent VII had died ) substituting for the ancient struggle between Naples and Milan , with the intractability between the two parties making Borja a viable candidate . 

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 Both Schicchi and Buoso Donati were historical characters . Dante 's verses , and the opera , are based on an actual incident that took place in 13th century Florence . Dante had several reasons for his harsh treatment of Schicchi : Dante 's wife , Gemma , was of the Donati family ; the poet himself was of pure Florentine descent . He despised members of the peasant class such as Schicchi . Dante 's class prejudice displays itself in several episodes in the Inferno : in one , three noble Florentines , who have died and gone to Hell , ask Dante for news of their home city . A disgusted Dante tells them that the city is now dominated by the nouveau riche . 

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 Villani was a Guelph , but his book is much more taken up with an inquiry into what is useful and true than with factional party considerations . In a departure from Guelph politics , he favored republicanism over monarchy , praising the philosopher Brunetto Latini as " the master and initiator in refining the Florentines , in making them skilled in good speaking and in knowing how to guide and rule our republic according to political science . " However , Villani admitted in his writing that republicanism bred factional strife , that benevolent rulers like Robert of Naples were sometimes needed to keep order , and republicanism could become tyrannical if it came to represent only one class ( such as exclusive favoring of aristocrats , merchants , or artisans ) . When detailing the construction of the Florence Cathedral and the artist Giotto di Bondone as the designer of the new bell tower , Villani called him " the most sovereign master of painting in his time . " Villani 's Cronica also provides the first known biography of Dante Alighieri ( 1265 – 1321 ) , author of the Divine Comedy , who Villani described as haughty , disdainful , and reserved . In his revised Cronica of 1322 , Villani shortened Dante 's biography and the amount of quotations taken from his Divine Comedy . Villani 's actions are explained by Richard H. Lansing and Teodolinda Barolini , who write : " Evidently two decades after the poet 's death a conservative writer closely identified with the Florentine state still felt obliged to distance himself from the most outspoken critic of the basis of that state 's prestige . " 

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 Scipione Piattoli ( Italian pronunciation : [ ʃiˈpjoːne ˈpjattoli ] ; November 10 , 1749 – April 12 , 1809 ) was an Italian Catholic priest — a Piarist — an educator , writer and political activist , and a major figure of the Enlightenment in Poland . After ten years as a professor at the University of Modena in Italy , he migrated to the Polish @-@ Lithuanian Commonwealth , where he became associated with several magnate families — the Potockis , Lubomirskis and Czartoryskis . He was a member of the Duchess Dorothea von Medem 's court in Courland ( Lithuania ) and of King Stanisław August Poniatowski 's court in the Commonwealth . 

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 With Alberti , Leonardo visited the home of the Medici and through them came to know the older Humanist philosophers of whom Marsiglio Ficino , proponent of Neo Platonism ; Cristoforo Landino , writer of commentaries on Classical writings , and John Argyropoulos , teacher of Greek and translator of Aristotle were the foremost . Also associated with the Academy of the Medici was Leonardo 's contemporary , the brilliant young poet and philosopher Pico della Mirandola . Leonardo later wrote in the margin of a journal , " The Medici made me and the Medici destroyed me . " While it was through the action of Lorenzo that Leonardo received his employment at the court of Milan , it is not known exactly what Leonardo meant by this cryptic comment . 
