This would have surprised Aristotle, the ancient inventor of the field, and Machiavelli, its modern reinventor. Both believed politics were a means to the end Aristotle called a telos ...

Becoming pope was a big deal for a cardinal and his family. Leading candidates known as papabili (pope-ables) began strategising and negotiating even before a pontiff died.

On May 3, 1469, the Italian philosopher and writer Niccolo Machiavelli is born. A lifelong patriot and diehard proponent of a ...

Enea Silvio Piccolomini left a detailed memoir of his election as Pius II in 1458. In it he describes a process of ...

By Evelyn Uddin-khan A long time ago, a young man, disappointed with his political life, wrote a treatise on how to seize control of a country and maintain life-long power as the sole ruler of that ...

Our Disruptor-in-Chief has grabbed the bloated federal corpus in his teeth and given it a good hard shake for 100 days. Many ...

It’s Danny Kind, and he’s not even Catholic. But he’s in a college class that simulated the conclave of 1492. (There were ...

As Stendhal knew, the reason for art is to make you feel. Do not try to grasp the artwork: allow it to grasp you instead ...

Enea Silvio Piccolomini left a detailed memoir of his election as Pius II in 1458. In it he describes a process of ...

“We’re a throwback to an older model that sees serious engagement with the great debates of the Western tradition as the best possible preparation for leadership,” said Antonio Sosa, a professor at UT ...