geronimo had been jailed, tortured and executed three generations before nicholo and francesco wrote treatises against civic freedom. this was a world that's niccolo machiavelli inherited. his own father was a rather bookish lawyer, ineffectual, impoverished, really one of the lesser lights in the machiavelli clan, who had in some ways made a little money by writing indexes for other books including he gained some degree of interest in books from his father. his interest in politics from the family that had long admitted to political behavior but at the same time he was no longer really in the mainstream of florentine. his own family, he was married and he had seven children halloween -- although we know despite the fact he was reasonably affectionate with his wife numerous affairs and madly in love with the quarters on it one time and his letters as i think the passes i just read from "the prince" indicates displayed a deep ambivalence about women, about trusting them and about their influence in the political world. throughout "the prince" for example he is always warning "the prin