Machiavelli e la crisi finanziaria del Cinquecento: conflitto economico e retorica della guerra (Machiavelli and the financial crisis of the sixteenth century: economic conflict and rhetoric of war)

The presence of a reflection about the economic sphere by Niccolò Machiavelli is a quite recent discovery. This paper tries in particular to underline the relevance and the internal transformations of this topic between the Discourses On Livy and the Florentine Histories, in order to highlight its specific historical articulation. Economic historian rather than economist, Machiavelli thinks the crisis of his epoch through a progressive consideration to the economic dimension in the relationship with political and social structure