Maurizio Viroli is Professor of Political Theory within the Department of Politics and associated faculty within the Department of History at Princeton University. 

He is Director of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies at the Università della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, Switzerland, where he is full professor of Political Communication. He also serves as Senior Research Fellow at the Collegio Carlo Alberto of Moncalieri, and has founded and is now the Director of a Master’s program in Civic Education established at Asti by Ethica Association of Asti with the support of Professor Robert P. George and the James Madison Program of Princeton University. Finally, he is the scientific coordinator of the Academies of Civic Education of the Compagnia San Paolo Foundation, and since 2005 he participates in the projects of Civic Education organized by the Department of Education of the Marche region, Italy. 

His main fields of research are political theory and the history of political thought, classical republicanism and neo-republicanism, with a special expertise on Niccolò Machiavelli and Jean Jacques Rousseau, republican iconography, the relationship between religion and politics, patriotism, constitutionalism, classical rhetoric, political communication, citizenship, and civic education. 

He holds a Laurea degree in Philosophy from the University of Bologna and a PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute of Firenze. His dissertation, on Rousseau’s political thought, was published with the title Jean Jacques Rousseau and the Well-Ordered Society, Cambridge University Press, 1988. 

He is the author of L’Etica Laica di Erminio Juvalta, Franco Angeli, 1988; From Politics to Reason of State. The Acquisition and Transformation of the Language of Politics (1250-1600), Cambridge University Press, 1992; For Love of Country: An Essay on Patriotism and Nationalism, Clarendon Press, 1995; Machiavelli, Oxford University Press, 1998. Among his most recent works:

Piccole Patrie, Grande Mondo, Donzelli, 1995 (with Martha C. Nussbaum and Gian Enrico Rusconi); Il sorriso di Niccolò. Storia di Machiavelli, Laterza, 1998, which has been translated into English as Niccolò’s Smile, New York, Farrar Straus and Giroux; Repubblicanesimo, Laterza, 1999 which has been translated into English as Republicanism, New York,  Farrar Straus and Giroux; (with Norberto Bobbio) Dialogo intorno alla Repubblica Laterza, 2001 which has been translated into English as The Idea of the Republic, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2003ì; Il Dio di Machiavelli e il problema morale del’Italia, Laterza, 2006 which has been translated into English as Machiavelli's God, Princeton, Princeton University press; How to read Machiavelli, Granda, 2008; L’Italia dei doveri, Rizzoli, 2008; Come se Dio ci fosse. Religione e Libertà nella storia d’

Italia, Einaudi, 2009; La Libertà dei Servi, Laterza, 2010. Forthcoming is a high-school textbook of civic education (with Laterza). He has also contributed articles to Il Sole 24 Ore, La Stampa, Il Fatto Quotidiano.  

His works have been translated into English and various other languages.   

He has edited and written the introduction to Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, Oxford University Press, translated by Peter Bondanella, 2005, and he has written the introduction to Giuseppe Mazzini, Opere Politiche, edited by Terenzio Grandi and Augusto Comba, UTET, 2005. With Gisela Bock and Quentin Skinner he has edited Machiavelli and Republicanism, Cambridge University Press, 1990. He has also edited Lezioni per la Repubblica. La festa è tornata in città, Diabasis, 2001, and Libertà politica e Virtù civile. Significati e percorsi del Repubblicanesimo classico, Fondazione Agnelli, 2004. He has contributed to several books, among the last: (with Nerio Alessandri, co- editor), Wellness - Storia e cultura del vivere bene, Sperling & Kupfer, 2007; Fra libertà e democrazia. L'eredità di Tocqueville e J.S. Mill, Franco Angeli, 2008; Gli anni di Firenze, Laterza, 2009. Forthcoming is (Alberto Melloni, edited by) Cristiani d'Italia. Chiese, società, stato, 1861-2011. 

He has taught and conducted research at the universities of Cambridge (Clare Hall), Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), the United Arab Emirates, Trento, Campobasso, Ferrara, the Institute for Advanced Study of Princeton, the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, the European University Institute of Firenze (Jean Monnet Fellow), the Collegio of Milano and the Scuola Superiore di Amministrazione dell’Interno. 

He has served as an advisor on cultural activities to the President of the Italian Republic during the presidency of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (1999-2006), and has worked for the President of the Camera dei Deputati during the presidency of Luciano Violante (1996-2001). He has served as the coordinator of the National Committee for the Improvement of the Republican Culture within the Ministry of Home Affairs. He has been consultant of ANCI (National Association of Italian Municipalities) . On May 30, 2001,  he was appointed Ufficiale dell'Ordine al Merito of the Italian Republic