During his stay in Lucca, Machiavelli became interested in the political organization and history of the city and engaged in writing the two texts presented in this volume: The Life of Castruccio Castracani from Lucca (La vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca) and Summary of the Political Institutions of Lucca (Sommario delle cose della città di Lucca).
The Life of Castruccio Castracani is a novelistic biography of the famous condottiere Castruccio Castracani, serving as a vehicle for the Florentine thinker to re-present his understanding of the concepts of Fortune (fortuna) and Virtue (virtù).
In the introductory essay, Dr. Alexander Schismenos delineates and substantiates the theoretical and philosophical framework of this edition.
In the Afterword, titled “The Life of Castruccio Castracani: Machiavelli as a Writer, Historian, Teacher, and Philosopher,” Catherine Zuckert, professor emerita of political science at the University of Notre Dame in the USA, offers an insightful and penetrating view of this text, organically connecting it to the rest of the Florentine thinker’s work.
