Abstract
Machiavelli was not the only humanist who discussed principalities early in the second decade of the sixteenth century. Erasmus was at work on the subject at that time, as was Castiglione. It is instructive to compare their books with his. If, as J. G. A. Pocock and Quentin Skinner argued, Machiavelli is best understood in the context of the humanists' enthusiasm for classical republicanism, The Formation of a Christian Prince and The Book of the Courtier should fit neatly together with The Prince. In fact, however, the author of this last volume is the odd man out. Erasmus and Castiglione speak the same language - one largely derivative from Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero - and, although they address monarchs and their courtiers and echo what these ancient writers had to say in praise of rule by the one best man, they join their predecessors in making it perfectly clear that, in practice, the mixed regime is nearly always a better option. In this, in particular, in according primacy to education and character, and in preferring elective to hereditary monarchy, they have more in common with their scholastic contemporary Savonarola than with the Florentine supposed to have given the devil his nickname "Old Nick."