Life of Castruccio Castracani

The Life of Castruccio Castracani is a short work by Niccolò Machiavelli, an Italian politician, diplomat, writer, philosopher and initiate and one of the greatest protagonists of the magnificent period of the Renaissance. It is made in the form of a short biographical account of the life of the medieval Tuscan condottiere Castruccio Castracani degli Antelminelli (1281-1328), Duke of Lucca and Lord of Carrara, Lerici, Pisa, Pontremoli and Sarzana.

The book is thought to have been written during a visit to Lucca in 1520. It was dedicated to Zanobi Buondelmonti and Luigi Alamanni, both affiliated, along with Machiavelli, with the secret Pythagorean Order and members of the Florentine Platonic Academy in its last historical phase, that of the Orti Oricellari.