Thursday, December 3rd, 6:30 P.M. - Italian American Museum - 155 Mulberry Street - (Corner of Grand and Mulberry Streets) - New York, NY 10013

Historian William J. Connell, holder of the Joseph M. and Geraldine C. La Motta Chair in Italian Studies at Seton Hall University, will discuss his recent book Machiavelli nel Rinascimento Italiano at the Italian American Museum on Thursday, December 3rd. Dr. Connell will detail his discoveries concerning the composition of Machiavelli's Prince that resulted in the radio broadcast that was awarded the Listeners Choice Award from National Public Radio.

About the Book:

"The Machiavelli of our textbooks, of the contemporary political world, and of our popular culture is clearly a stereotype. No matter whether he is praised or criticized, this is a Machiavelli who is denatured, uprooted. In classrooms he is a tool teachers use to teach subjects for which he himself cared nothing at all. Politicians like to invoke him principally when they want to excuse the inexcusable. Again and again the media drop his name, but only to prompt winks and grins in a passively receptive public that likes to feel as though it has been let in on a joke. ... To show with greater precision, thanks to newly discovered documents, the circumstances in which Machiavelli wrote his great works, restoring them to their proper context in the Italian Renaissance, is the reason for publishing this collection of essays about the great writer and about the society and culture of his time."

About the Author:

Dr. William J. Connell has taught Italian and Italian American History at Seton Hall University since 1998. He has been a Fulbright Scholar, a Harvard I Tatti Fellow, and a Member of the Institute for Advance Study at Princeton. He has published numerous books, including a major translation of Machiavelli's Prince. Currently he is co-editing the Routledge History of Italian Americans.

Suggested donation of $10 per person. RSVP Code: Machiavelli1203. For reservations, please call the

Italian American Museum at 212.965.9000 or Email: [email protected]