““Their moral indignation was sometimes feigned, but the Elizabethans’ nearly four hundred references to the Florentine Secretary introduced the derogatory terms ‘Machiavellian’ and ‘Machiavellianism’ into the English language. Some churchmen branded the book the work of the devil and its author an atheist, and Machiavelli’s first name came to be associated with an already popular term for the devil: Old Nick.””
