Niccolò Machiavelli as Machiavelli had himself done, despite also explaining how they could sometimes work). This became the theme of much future political discourse in Europe during the 17th century. This includes the Catholic Counter Reformation writers summarised by Bireley: Giovanni Botero, Justus Lipsius, Carlo Scribani, Adam Contzen, Pedro de Ribadeneira, and Diego Saavedra Fajardo. These authors criticized Machiavelli, but also followed him in many ways. They accepted the need for a prince to be concerned with reputation, and even a need for cunning and deceit, but compared to Machiavelli, and like later modernist writers, they emphasized economic progress much more than
Niccolò Machiavelli being a statesman and political scientist, Machiavelli also translated classical works, and was a playwright ("Clizia", "Mandragola"), a poet ("Sonetti", "Canzoni", "Ottave", "Canti carnascialeschi"), and a novelist ("Belfagor arcidiavolo"). Some of his other work: "Della Lingua" (Italian for "Of the Language") (1514), a dialogue about Italy's language is normally attributed to Machiavelli. Machiavelli's literary executor, Giuliano de' Ricci, also reported having seen that Machiavelli, his grandfather, made a comedy in the style of Aristophanes which included living Florentines as characters, and to be titled "Le Maschere". It has been suggested that due to such things as this and his style