Born around 1532 in Vienne, France, Innocent Gentillet was a Huguenot lawyer who fled to Geneva after the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572. In 1576, he published Discours sur les moyens de bien gouverner & maintenir en paix un Royaume, ou autre Principaute, Contre Nicolas Machiavel Florentin, popularly known as Anti-Machiavel. Despite a papal ban in 1605, Anti-Machiavel went through twenty-four editions in French, Latin, English, German, and Dutch; it was read and used by Montaigne and Shakespeare. This edition presents Simon Patericke's 1602 English translation, revised for modern spelling and grammar, and explores Anti-Machiavel's connections with other works of the period.
