Minus the drops, strappado is one of my favorites.

But seriously, an excellent article.  Machievelli remains one of the most fascinating of political theorists/advisers.  The article provides a new insight for me, to read Machievelli's realism as the result of being both in desperate need of a job and of being tortured, in essence made to submit.

Some of the quotes are worth remembering, such as How one lives and how one ought to live are so far apart that he who spurns what is actually done for what ought to be done will achieve ruin rather than his own preservation.