Abstract

Before the modern stabilization of the concept, the word stato has a multiplicity of meanings in the early modern period, from status to form of government or social position. Niccolò Machiavelli works within this framework but with an original point of view. This essay tries to account in particular his conclusions in the second and third books of Florentine Histories: in this context the state represents both the whole political space and the dominant position of a social group. Thus Machiavelli describes the defective feature of the florentine history through an image of political space necessarily dominated by a faction.