Bernardo di Niccolò Machiavelli ((between 1426 and 1429) -1500), was a citizen of Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 and father to Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian historian, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He is one of the main founders of modern political science. He was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic...

. A Doctor of Law (hence, his title of Messer), debts inherited from his father and uncles limited his career preventing him from joining the legal guild. He is known independently for his diary or Libro di Ricordi, chronicling the years 1474-1487. The pages, housed in the Biblioteca Riccardiana

Accademia della Crusca

The Accademia della Crusca is an Italian society for scholars and Italian linguists and philologists established in Florence. After the Accademia Cosentina, it is the oldest Italian academy still in existence...

in Florence, serve as a valuable window into everyday life and culture during the time and provide the only reliable information on his famous son's early youth. Bernardo Machiavelli was married to Bartolommea di Stefano Nelli. They had four children, Primavera, Margherita, Niccolò (the author of The Prince) and Totto.