Don MacDonald’s historically-accurate graphic novel about Machiavelli has finally been released and can be purchased though his website. He describes it as a ” …historically accurate graphic novel; hand drawn, hand painted and set in Renaissance Florence.”
If you’ve followed the story on MacDonald’s blog, and seen the artwork, you’ll know his engaging style and storytelling. It’s a great addition to the literature about the Florentine political philosopher, and I hope it will make Machiavelli accessible to a new audience. And, perhaps, help clarify who Niccolo really was.
MacDonald gave a TED talk about his interest in Machiavelli and you can read a transcript or watch the video on his own website. In that talk, he says Machiavelli was not particularly Machiavellian in the modern, pejorative sense of the word:
…in popular depictions of Machiavelli, like The Borgias on TV, the old caricature persists. Machiavelli is portrayed as a paragon of his own adjective, always in the shadows, ready to whisper the some sort of dark advice into the ear of power. But Machiavelli was not particularly Machiavellian, actually.
It’s a good talk and worth reading. I recommend both the book and his website to all my readers.