Excellent post. Have you ever read Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West? His criticisms of how the Renaissance is taught is fascinating. His take was that the Renaissance was not a renewal of the Classical World but rather a product of Western Man's imagination as to what the Classical World was like.

I also thought that Machiavelli's The Prince was actually a satire, pointing out all the faults rather than those characteristics that should be emulated.

Any thoughts?