AUSTRALIA
The Australian
TOM KINGTON
THE TIMES
JANUARY 6, 2016
The Italian Renaissance philosopher who rejected Christian morality and kickstarted the cynical art of modern politics may have hated the church after he was sexually abused as a boy by a priest, a scholar has claimed.
Niccolo Machiavelli, whose 16th-century work The Prince defined the callous pursuit of power, probably was abused by his Latin teacher, a priest, leaving him with a bitter view of Catholic teaching, according to Robert Black, an emeritus professor of history at the University of Leeds whose findings have ben published in Italy.
Claims that Machiavelli was abused were first made a decade ago, based on a 1515 letter that the Florentine received from Francesco Vettori, a friend.
“Vettori wrote, ‘We are all corrupt thanks to the teachers our parents hired who had their way with us, and we have never got over it’,” Professor Black said.
Speculation grew that he was discussing Paolo Sassi da Ronciglione, a priest who taught Vettori and Machiavelli.
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