Jean Bodin, Six Books of the Commonwealth (1576)—This response to the religious crises of the Wars of Religion advocates respect for the absolute sovereignty of the prince as the way out of France's troubles. It became an important text justifying the absolutist pretensions of seventeenth-century monarchs.

Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology (1474)—A major work of Renaissance Platonism, this treatise tries to synthesize Plato's philosophy with the Christian religion. Its heavy reliance on metaphysics was not widely understood, although many tried. Certain concepts, like the notion of Platonic Love, were to catch on as a result of Ficino's works.

Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (1513)—The author thought that this portrait of the amoral prince was necessary to end the chaos of Italy's politics. Notorious in the sixteenth century for its amorality, the work was one of the first realistic portraits of politics.

Marsilius of Padua...