Machiavelli, like Christ, came into history only in his thirties. His youth is virtually unknown to us, until today. We find only a few facts in his father's Ricordi, which covers the period 1474-87; there we learn that at the age of seven Niccolò studied the ‘donatello’ (the short edition of the late-classical grammar of Donatus), first with Master Matteo, near S. Trinità bridge, then, from March 1477, with Battista di Filippo da Poppi, who taught in the church of St. Benedict. At ten, he went to live with Master Piero Maria, to study the Abacus (a short arithmetical treatise) and ‘librettine,’ the elementary calculating system. Lastly, in November 1481, Niccolò began to study Latin, under Pagolo da Ronciglione's direction. And that is all.