Considering that the goals of the ruler are the conquest and maintenance of power, Niccolò Machiavelli suggests that the state of war is a permanent situation in the art of governing. This article discusses the political thought of the author based on his analysis of war. It aims to apprehend the meaning that he confers on politics and the foundations of a theory about war, built on the dialogue with the experiences of past and the historical circumstances of his time. The work is structured according to the following topics: Machiavelli's dialogue with the past, desacralization of politics, and the dialogue between modernity and Machiavelli.
politics; power; war; violence; state; Machiavelli