Table of Contents

Introduction: Christianity, Christ, and Machiavelli's The Prince
Christianity's Siren Song
Christ's Defective Political Foundations
Hope Is Not Enough
The Prince of War
Machiavelli's Unchristian Virtue
Christ's Ruinous Political Legacy
The Harrowing Redemption of Italy
Conclusion: Machiavelli's Gospel
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Reviews

This book is a well-written, well-organized effort to uncover the textual sources of Machiavelli's understanding of Christianity. It offers a close and nuanced reading of the relevant texts. Whether or not one agrees with its perspective or with its conclusions, it is an excellent piece of scholarship.
*RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY*

This is the work of a lifetime. Parsons gives exhaustive commentaries on all the important texts, but chiefly The Prince and the Discourses, to substantiate his deliberately shocking thesis. He has produced a work that every serious student of Machiavelli will henceforth have to engage.
*HEYTHROPE JOURNAL*

Machiavelli's Gospel provocatively delineates and deciphers biblical allegories in Machiavelli's political writings, especially The Prince. [. . .] Parsons provides exciting new interpretive twists on figures such as Savonarola and Cesare Borgia, whom Machiavelli clearly meant to serve as symbolic proxies for Christ. Parsons also sheds fresh light on the Christological (or anti-Christological) elements of Machiavelli's depictions of other figures such as Philip V of Macedon, Philopoemen of the Achaean league, and Piero Soderini, Machiavelli's patron and the gonfalonier of justice in the Florentine Republic.
*REVIEW OF POLITICS*

Parsons offers in great detail a Machiavelli to which careful readers have always had access.
*PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICS*

Machiavelli's Gospel makes a unique and substantial contribution to the scholarly literature on Machiavelli. William Parsons's mastery of both Machiavelli's texts and the New Testament is impressive, and he executes the confrontation between Machiavelli and Christianity with remarkable thoroughness and subtlety. --
*Nathan Tarcov, University of Chicago*

In this provocative book, William Parsons makes a strong case for reading Machiavelli's Prince as a radical -- and often audacious -- critique of Christianity. No previous study has so thoroughly examined Machiavelli's complex engagements with the Bible, especially the New Testament. By comparing lessons from the Gospels with passages from the Prince and Discourses that seem to subvert the teaching of Christ, Machiavelli's Gospel introduces readers to a fascinating and underexplored terrain. --
*Erica Benner, Yale University*