Niccolò Machiavelli work location Italy
Machiavelli's success did not last. In August 1512, the Medici, backed by Pope Julius II, used Spanish troops to defeat the Florentines at Prato. In the wake of the siege, Soderini resigned as Florentine head of state and left in exile. The experience would, like Machiavelli's time in foreign courts and with the Borgia, heavily influence his political writings. The Florentine city-state and the republic were dissolved, and Machiavelli was deprived of office and banished from the city for a year. In 1513, the Medici accused him of conspiracy against them and had him imprisoned. Despite being subjected to torture ("with the rope", in which the prisoner is hanged from his bound wrists from the back, forcing the arms to bear the body's weight and dislocating the shoulders), he denied involvement and was released after three weeks.
Machiavelli then retired to his farm estate at Sant'Andrea in Percussina, near San Casciano in Val di Pesa, where he devoted himself to studying and writing his political treatises. He visited places in France, Germany, and Italy where he had represented the Florentine republic. Despairing of the opportunity to remain directly involved in political matters, after a time, he began to participate in intellectual groups in Florence and wrote several plays that (unlike his works on political theory) were both popular and widely known in his lifetime. Politics remained his main passion and, to satisfy this interest, he maintained a well-known correspondence with more politically connected friends, attempting to become involved once again in political life. In a letter to Francesco Vettori, he described his experience:
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