The essay reconstructs the traces that the early reading of Lucretius left in Machiavelli’s works, and critically discusses some recent hypotheses on the central role of Epicureanism in the genesis of Machiavelli’s thought. Despite convergences and divergences between the two authors on some specific points – materialism, the relationship between science, free action, contingency – the extraneousness of Machiavelli’s thought to any pre-established philosophical scheme is underlined.