Machiavelli: A Portrait, by Christopher S. Celenza. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2015. 256 pp. $24.95 US (cloth). What is there left to say about Niccolo Machiavelli? We are amid a flurry of anniversaries marking five hundred years since important milestones in Machiavelli's life. It seems that every year we are treated to more and more speculative texts, of greater and lesser degrees of seriousness, that attempt to apply the supposed insights of the Florentine secretary to management science, the conduct of business, even gender relations. He clearly remains on the brain and, because Machiavelli always thrust the burden of interpretation back on his readers, he finds reinterpretation in each generation. Christopher Celenza's spare yet elegant portrait breaks little new ground in our understanding of this seminal figure. Nonetheless, for those seeking an introduction to Machiavelli, it's a great starting point and is highly effective in addressing the question with which the author begins: why do we remain so fascinated by Machiavelli? There can be few historical figures who have elicited such a wide range of portrayals as has Machiavelli, from stenographer for tyranny to misunderstood advocate of liberty. Celenza explains why we must avoid such simple and lazy characterizations. First, Machiavelli was not what we would call a systematic thinker. He did not seek to offer programmatic solutions to the challenges of everyday political life. Instead his advice for men of state prescribed flexibility, foresight and decisiveness, a combination that called for different solutions according to the circumstances. Second, Celenza stresses that Machiavelli, like many Renaissance thinkers, worked out his ideas in conversation with others, using them as sounding boards, editors, and critics. Thus the image of Machiavelli, taken from his famous letter to Francesco Vettori, of a sage retreating to his scrittoio to converse in private with his beloved Ancients, is in fact deeply misleading. This focus on the social dimensions of the Machiavellian corpus is welcome. While Celenza ably describes the intellectual building blocks of Machiavelli's thought (especially his reading of ancient historians like Livy and Polybius), he points out that Machiavelli was not a scholar. Just as important to the formation of Machiavelli's outlook was his esperientia --Celenza emphasizes in particular the time he spent alongside Cesare Borgia as well as his role in organizing a militia for Florence while serving the Soderini regime. Machiavelli was an insightful observer of people, from the past and in his own day--he had, per Celenza, a proto-anthropological sensitivity. Certain human behaviours are timeless, whether in the pages of Livy or the streets of sixteenth-century Florence. Indeed, this interface between past and present was a recurring tension in Machiavelli's life and works; Celenza insists that Machiavelli was aware that he was vulnerable to accusations of excessive praise of the past, especially as he got older. …